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• Levoit or Coway: which one to buy
• Vital 200S vs Coway Mighty, side by side
• Which covers a bigger room, and which is AHAM certified?
• Does Levoit or Coway have an ionizer?
• Which costs more to run?
• Which is quieter, and which is easier to run?
• For a small room: the Levoit Core 300
• Coway Mighty2 and MightyS vs Vital 200S
• Questions people ask

Levoit or Coway: which air purifier should you buy?

For a bedroom, buy the Levoit Vital 200S. If you’ve had a purifier quit on you before, the Coway Mighty is the one, because Coway covers its motor and electronics for three years.

Both are made for a bedroom or a living room. Each has a HEPA-type filter, so either is a good buy if you live with allergies.

The Vital is the one I would put by a bed. It has no ionizer, its room size has been checked by independent labs, and there is an app if you want one.

With a cat or a dog in the house, the Vital has two extras. Levoit sells a pet version of its filter, and there is a Pet Mode in the app that makes it work harder.

Our reviews of the Coway Mighty and the Levoit Vital 200S go further into each one.

Buy the Coway Mighty if

• You’d rather have no Wi-Fi or app to set up.
• Your room is 361 square feet or smaller.

Buy the Levoit Vital 200S if

• You like the idea of turning it down from your phone.
• You would rather not have an ionizer in the house.
• Your room is between 361 and 388 square feet, a little too big for the Mighty.

Levoit Vital 200S vs Coway Mighty AP-1512HH, side by side

The Mighty wins on its motor warranty. The Vital wins on the app and on filters. It needs one new filter a year, and the Mighty needs three.

I’d take the Vital for its filters alone. One filter a year is one date to remember, and the Mighty runs two schedules side by side.

Which covers a bigger room, and which is AHAM certified?

The Vital, by a little, and it is the certified one. Independent labs have tested its 388 square feet, and the Mighty’s 361 is Coway’s own figure.

I trust the Mighty’s 361 anyway. Certified sizes are worked out from how fast a purifier clears smoke. Do the same math with the Mighty’s smoke figure, and you get exactly Coway’s number.

Skip the room sizes in the Amazon titles. They promise up to 1,875 square feet for the Vital and 1,748 for the Mighty, far bigger than the rooms either one is sized for.

Which one for which room

A nursery or a home office. Go smaller than both, to the Levoit Core 300. It is certified for rooms up to 222 square feet, and there is no reason to pay for more purifier than the room can use.

The bedroom you sleep in. If your bedroom is 361 square feet or less, either one covers it, so the ionizer is what separates them. I would take the Vital, which has none.

A living room or a family room. The Mighty is a good buy here, as long as the room measures 361 square feet or less. Nobody sleeps beside it, so the ionizer matters less to me.

A room a little bigger than the Mighty can handle. Between 361 and 388 square feet, only the Vital covers it.

Anything bigger than that. Neither one is enough, so look at a larger purifier. Our air purifier size guide shows you how to measure the room first.

Does Levoit or Coway have an ionizer?

The Coway Mighty has one, with its own button to switch it off. The Levoit Vital 200S has none.

Coway says it helps with the very finest particles in the air. On California’s list, it puts the Mighty with the purifiers that can make a little ozone, while the Vital sits with the filter-only ones. The Mighty passed the state’s ozone test, so it stays under California’s limit.

In the room where I sleep, I would switch it off and let the filters do the work.

With the Vital there is nothing to switch off and nothing to remember at bedtime.

If you want a Coway without one, look at the Mighty2 and the MightyS. California lists both as filter-only purifiers, like the Vital. Both cost a good deal more than the Vital, though, so for a bedroom-sized purifier with no ionizer, I would buy the Vital.

Levoit vs Coway filters: which costs more to run?

The Mighty. The Vital takes one new filter a year, for under $50 at Levoit. The Mighty takes a new smell filter every 6 months and a new HEPA filter every year, and a year’s worth comes to under $60 at Coway, so you pay a little more each year.

The Vital’s main filter gets replaced once a year. Levoit’s filter page says one can last as little as 6 months, so a smoky summer could mean buying a second.

Levoit also sells the Vital’s filter in versions made for pets, smoke and toxins, each for under $65. If wildfires are why you are shopping, the Toxin Absorber is the version Levoit packs with the Vital in its wildfire bundle.

Behind the Mighty’s pre-filter sit two filters that wear out at different speeds. Coway wants the smell filter changed every 6 months and the HEPA filter every year.

Coway’s set holds a HEPA filter and two smell filters, enough for a year on Coway’s schedule. Even so, it costs more than the Vital’s filter.

The Coway Mighty review goes through each of its filters.

Which is quieter, Levoit or Coway, and which is easier to run?

Neither is quieter by the brands’ figures, which put them a decibel apart at each end. The Vital is easier to run from bed, because you can use your phone, and the Mighty needs less from you.

Put the Mighty in eco mode and the fan stops altogether after half an hour of clean air. It also has a timer for 1, 4 or 8 hours, and you can switch its air quality light off at bedtime.

Left on auto, the Mighty will climb all the way to speed 3, its fastest. The Vital’s standard auto stops one step short, at high, so on a bad-air night it stays below its loudest.

The Vital’s app lets you turn it down from your phone or set Quiet Auto, which keeps auto mode from going past medium. You can also run it by voice through Alexa or Google Assistant.

You do not need the app, either. If the Vital won’t connect, the buttons on the unit run it fine.

The Mighty has no Wi-Fi at all, so there is nothing to set up.

Which Levoit or Coway for a small room? The Levoit Core 300

The Levoit Core 300. Put it in a nursery, a home office or a small bedroom, anywhere up to 222 square feet, and it costs less than either of the bigger two.

It is also the purifier we own. Our Core 300-P began in our bedroom in 2021. Maybe it was alright for our room size, but we didn’t feel like it, so it went to our home office, a smaller room.

My wife’s gripe was the filters. The Core 300’s filter does not wash, so the whole filter gets replaced each time. She was the one who kept buying them.

It is due more often than the Vital’s, too, every 6 to 8 months instead of once a year. At under $30 at Levoit, it costs less each time.

If you are torn between the Core 300 and one of the bigger two for a bedroom, buy the bigger one.

For a room that small, I would buy the plain Core 300-P, for under $100 at Levoit. If you want an app with it, get the Core 300S-P instead.

Coway Mighty2 and MightyS vs Levoit Vital 200S

The Vital, for most bedrooms, because it costs less than either. The Mighty2 is worth its higher price if you want a Coway that goes to sleep on its own when the lights go out. The MightyS makes sense only if you want Coway’s app.

The plain Mighty is still sold, right alongside these two.

Coway Mighty2 vs Levoit Vital 200S

The Mighty2 notices when the room goes dark. After 3 minutes of darkness it drops into sleep mode on its own, so you do not have to touch it at bedtime. It has no ionizer, either.

Coway puts its lowest setting at 19 decibels, quieter than the Vital or the Mighty on the brands’ figures.

Coway sizes it differently, as a 450-square-foot room cleaned in 15 minutes. Its smoke figure is a little higher than the Mighty’s, so I would put it in the same kind of room, a bedroom or a living room.

Like the Vital, it runs on one main filter a year, under $70 at Coway. I would buy Coway’s own, because its manual says an off-brand filter can cost you the warranty.

At under $270 from Coway, it costs a lot more than the Vital. Buy it if you want a Coway with no ionizer that looks after bedtime by itself.

Coway MightyS vs Levoit Vital 200S

Think of the MightyS as the Mighty with its ionizer taken out and Wi-Fi put in. It connects to Coway’s IoCare+ app and works with Alexa, and its timer lives in the app, with no timer button on the unit.

Like the Vital, it takes one main filter a year. Coway sells that as a set for under $70, which costs more than the Vital’s.

If an app is what you want, the Vital has one for a lot less.

The Coway Mighty review goes further into the Mighty2 and the MightyS.

Questions people ask

I sold contract-grade furniture from 2016. More about who runs it.