Blueair Blue Pure 411 review: stylish air purifier with zero complexity

The Blueair Blue Pure 411 review for people who can't be bothered to read reviews: one small box with a button on top could be all you need in an air purifier.

While it's not the best air purifier in the world, Blueair Blue Pure 411, from the people who brought you the T3 Award-winning Blueair Classic 480i, is probably the simplest and least obtrusive. For smaller rooms, or just for carrying around with you from room to room – it's very light – it's great.

The Blue Pure 411 is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum from the enormous and industrial-looking Classic 480i. Made in Scandinavia, it's got a distinctly IKEA vibe – including feeling rather cheap and flimsy, which is of course the negative side of being light-weight and colourful. 

However, the Blueair Blue Pure 411 does its job, so long as you don't make its job too hard. More importantly, it does so in a way that you barely have any input into.  Just put it down and forget it.

Blueair Classic 480i review: price and availability

The Blue Pure 411 is an entirely reasonable £130/$120/AUS$250-ish. Why is it so much cheaper in the USA than the UK? I don't know. But it's a good price everywhere, even in 'rip-off Britain'.

Replacement filters are also cheap at £20, $20 or AUS$50. That's good news as you are supposed to replace them every six months.

Blueair Blue Pure 411: design

A compact cylinder made of a choice of colourful plastics, the Blue Pure 411 is beautifully simple. It stands just 42.5cm tall and has a diameter of 20cm. It's among the simplest and most compact air purifiers you can get.

Controls are pretty simple too. They are as follows: one button on the top that you push to cycle the Blue Pure 411 between its three power settings. And that's it. No apps, no displays, no flashing lights apart from a red one that tells you when to change the filter. It's very lagom, as the Swedes say. Or do I mean hyyge? It's simple and minimalist is what I am saying.

What else can I tell you about the Blue Pure 411? Changing the filter is a simple matter, which is good since you'll be doing it a couple of times a year at least. The filter is a three-layer affair, with an outer filter to catch larger particles and dust, a fine HEPA filter to remove particles and allergens and a carbon filter to deal with fumes.

As far as I can tell, the warning to change the filter is based on time passed rather than sensing how saturated with allergens, particles and smoke it is, so it's probably wise to keep an eye on it if you're using it in a more polluted area. 

It's compact and very light at just 1.5kg so it's easy to carry the thing around. Putting it in the kids' rooms seems like an obvious use for the Blue Pure 411 but I do worry it might not survive the encounter in the long term, unless your children are particularly well behaved, or you put it out of their reach.

I have now run out of things to say about the design of the Blueair Blue Pure 411 so let's move on.

Blueair Blue Pure 411 review: setup

Not much to say here either. The Blue Pure 411 comes with its filter already installed so you just plug it in and, er, that's it. You can press the button on top for a little extra frisson of excitement if you like.

On its standard speed setting the Blue Pure 411 is extremely quiet, which is another big point in its favour. On full power its somewhat noisier but I think on the whole you would hardly ever use it, unless some kind of terrible air-fouling incident has occurred. 

Blueair Blue Pure 411 review: performance

Despite the picture above, there is no way I'd use this in the kitchen if you're doing high-temperature cooking that will produce smoke and oily fumes. Get a more butch air purifier if you're going to do that. Or, you know, turn on the kitchen extractor fan that is there to do that exact job.

For bedrooms, hallways, front rooms, parlours and anywhere else you're not setting fire to stuff the Blue Pure 411 seems to do a perfectly good job. The maximum room size recommended by Blueair is 15 m sq which, understandably, is on the small size.

What I love about the Blue Pure 411 is that there are no app data read-outs to fuss over or make you feel (more) paranoid about your air quality. It just unobtrusively clears the air 5 times per hour. 

I used it in rooms with a Dyson purifier set up to monitor the air quality only and the Blue Pure 411 was clearly maintaining good air quality. I tried it in the kitchen when cooking burgers and that did not work out so well, but that's fair enough. Blueair clearly says that it is for 'light gases' only.

Blueair Blue Pure 411 review: verdict

There's nothing to complain about with the Blue Pure 411. It's small, lightweight, quite stylish and purifies your air. If you want commercial grade pollutant removal, obviously this is not for you, but for maintaining less polluted, smaller spaces it's great. Low noise, no fuss.