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Available at Walmart for less than $50, this Better Homes & Gardens-branded tower fan appears to be a reskinned version of a well-rated model from HomeLabs that sells for roughly twice as much on Amazon. Alongside the sleep timer and the three speed settings, you'll find two additional modes that simulate a natural breeze. The remote uses magnetism to stay in place on top of the device when you aren't using it -- a nice, high-end touch not commonly found at this price.

The sturdy, understated design features a grill that oscillates within a fixed base, making it less conspicuous than a tower fan that turns entirely from side-to-side. While I found it plenty powerful to cool off a medium to large room on a hot day, it still managed to keep things a little quieter than smaller tower fans like the Vornado V-Flow and the TaoTronics TT-F001.

I'd like it better if the warranty ran longer than a single year and if the build weren't quite so plasticky, but those trade-offs are more than fair at this price. If you're looking for a capable tower fan that feels more expensive than it actually is, this one fits the bill better than anything else I've tested.

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Tower fans generate noise, which might be top of mind if you're planning on using one while you sleep or binge through your favorite TV shows. Fortunately, the quietest fan I tested, the Honeywell QuietSet, was also a pretty well-rounded appliance across the board.

Along with holding its highest-speed setting to a best-in-class 41 decibels (measured at a distance of 30 inches), the QuietSet was also one of the most energy efficient fans I tested, drawing just 36 watts at full blast. Speaking of settings, the QuietSet offers a whole bunch of them, ranging from a near-silent, 26 db Sleep setting and a comfortably quiet, 28 db White Noise setting up to Relax, Refresh, Cool and Power Cool settings that move greater masses of air while keeping the noise at bay. The slim, rocket-shaped design is sturdy and relatively compact, the batteries-included remote docks neatly in the back when not in use and the upward-angled controls on top are easy on the eyes. You can customize the brightness of those LED lights on top, too.

The $70 price tag makes this model a slight upgrade over your average tower fan, but it looks and feels the part. I wish the warranty ran longer than one year, but that's just about my only criticism of this impressive tower fan.

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At $80, the TaoTronics TT-F001 isn't an inexpensive tower fan, but it makes up for it with a great mix of features and by packing plenty of cooling power into a compact, 35-inch build. Its 60W power draw was second only to Dyson among the fans I tested, and its highest-speed setting was the second noisiest, ringing in at 48 decibels -- but neither factor is a deal breaker, particularly if you need a smaller tower fan but you don't want to sacrifice cooling power.

As for the features, the TT-F001 includes an ambient temperature reading on the admittedly dated-looking display. Those readings proved to be completely accurate when I used some of the thermocouples left over from my waffle maker tests to double check them. Better yet, those readings let you run the fan on an auto-pilot mode, where it automatically turns on whenever the temperature rises above 79 degrees. With the exception of Dyson, none of the other fans I tested offered an auto-pilot mode like that. I also appreciated the artificial breeze modes and the removable cover in the back, which makes the fan easier to clean.

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When it comes to ultra-high-end tower fans, Dyson is awfully tough to beat. Its latest, the Dyson TP04, is a $550 behemoth with king-size activated carbon and glass HEPA air filters hugging the base intake. That allows it to purify the air it puts out, removing things like dust and allergens from the air you breathe. Dyson claims it can catch particles as small as 0.3 microns wide (and before you Google it, a single coronavirus molecule is 0.125 microns wide, and although there's research from NASA suggesting that HEPA filters might be highly effective at capturing particles as small as 0.01 microns wide, it's worth adding that the CDC currently notes that most COVID-19 transmission comes from person-to-person contact). Just know that if an air purifier you're after, you can find lots of good options that cost less, as my colleague David Priest can attest.

Air filtration aside, the Dyson boasts 10 speed settings ranging from an ultra-quiet 28 decibels up to a 48-decibel blast of concentrated air. It was the most comfortable tower fan I tested, too, with a cool, steady stream of air that feels like a much less forceful version of one of Dyson's bathroom hand dryers. An LCD screen on the front of the device tracks air quality in real time, but you can also set it to display things like the ambient room temperature or the relative humidity. You can also customize the oscillation angle between 45-, 90-, 180-, and 350-degree settings, which is a very nice, unique touch. The sleek remote docks magnetically on top of the fan when you aren't using it, too.

On top of all of that, the TP04 features app-enabled smarts. I'll admit I didn't spend too much time testing all of the features out (I had seven other fans in my test queue), but the app offers a detailed look at the air quality in your home and it lets you create custom cooling schedules, too. You can also use it to customize the fan's auto-pilot mode to your liking. The TP04 also supports voice controls via Alexa or via Siri.

All of that adds up to one of the nicest and most fully featured tower fans that money can currently buy. Whether or not it's worth the full $550 is up to you, but I'll note that it's in the same ballpark as high-end air purifiers from names like Coway and Levoit that don't boast as many features as Dyson and don't double as tower fans at all. If you want to save some money, the original Dyson TP01, which offers the same design and many of the same features, is still available, too -- that one currently costs $160 less than the TP04.