I should start off by saying I've owned this fan before. In 2010 I bought this exact same fan under a different brand name, and until a few weeks ago had been running it pretty much constantly on low until finally it quit. When I saw the product photo I could hardly believe it and I bought it immediately.The first question you might have on your mind is, why?Let's start with the longevity. Sure, it died, but that was after 7 years of near-constant use. Morning, noon, and night that's roughly 60,000 hours of relentless operation. A post-mortem examination revealed that the inside of the motor housing was jam packed with 7 years of cat hair and dust. The heat from the motor had no place else to go and the poor thing just gave up!Next, this thing moves a lot of air even on low. The metal wire guard doesn't obstruct airflow like a lot of the newer plastic ones do (I'm looking at you, Lasko), and the large rounded blades are capable of pushing a lot of air without much effort. It's quiet but not too quiet. If you're like us and like to sleep with a fan on for a bit of white noise I feel that the low setting provides the perfect amount.The heavy round base and tall stand. Unlike my old Room Essentials version of this fan which had a flimsy base and a short stand, this one stands tall and the weighted base is not easy to knock over. Nothing else at this price point has a round, weighted base like this one.There are two things you should be aware of if you're going to own this fan. The first is that nearly all of the airflow comes through the inner two inches surrounding the motor housing. If you have pets or a lot of dust that inner ring is going to fill up and the fan will feel weak until you clean it. Same goes for the blades, which will collect pet hair and dust along the leading edges and render the fan useless until you remove the wire guard and clean them. The second thing is that dust will collect inside the motor housing through the cooling holes in the rear and eventually cause the fan to die. If you have a skinny screwdriver I highly recommend that from time to time you remove the motor housing and clean this out with your vacuum. It's easy and it only takes a couple of minutes. I wish I'd done all of that, I'm convinced my previous fan would have survived another 7 years if I had. (If this gives you pause, I'd like to remind you that every single pedestal fan on the market is going to die an early death from this very problem. The difference is this fan is a durable workhorse that is worth a little effort to prolong its life.)My only gripe with the fan is the wire metal guard is cheaply made and can be a pain assemble. I'm not going to dock it a star because everything else makes up for it.In summary, this is an excellent low-tech fan. If all you want is a simple fan without any remotes, lights, or gadgets this one is for you. Keep it clean, treat it right, and it'll continue to chooch long after all of those other goofy fans have passed on to the electronic graveyard.