I paid about $25 for the model pictured in the photo above, less than a month ago at my local Wal-Mart. I live in an old Victorian home with high ceilings and gas heat, so in the cold winter months the humidity in my home is slim to none. I decided to buy this model because it was the least expensive of the three Sunbeam models my local Wal-Mart had in stock, and because there were no other brands to choose from; at least there were none available in the home and hardware dept., and I needed something a bit larger than the bedside humidifiers I'd have found in the health and beauty aid dept., like the Vicks models. Most people would think this product was too loud, but I need a bit of white noise to go to sleep, so the loud hum of this product was perfect for lulling me off to sleep. Alas, the humidifying properties were not... as the above poster stated, the filter soaks up a LOT of water... be prepared to refill after the first time. Supposedly on low setting (and I always used it on low setting; the high setting is WAY TOO LOUD and would run dry in 2-3 hours!) you should be able to use the product non-stop for up to 24 hours before needing to refill. Not true; most mornings, I'd wake up to find the unit had run dry. Those were just the maddeningly irritating things; I finally took the unit back today because the filter fell apart. The filter should last approx. three months; this one had lasted less than a month, and that was not with regular use. It probably had a week's worth of use on it. I was told to get a Crane, so I just ordered the one with about 1300 positive reviews on Amazon. I'll post my thoughts on this one later.

After being sick for a week and several people recommending I get a humidifier to help, I ran out to the nearest wal-mart and bought this one. I set it up according to the instructions, gave the filter time to soak up water, and turned it on. I left it on for more than an hour and waited for it to start putting out the mist. It did nothing but put out cold air! Even if by some miracle the mist started working, it would be too cold to leave on and way too noisy to sleep with.