You’ll notice we don’t recommend a pitcher filter over a faucet filter, or vice versa. We can see both sides of the coin: Faucet filters tend to give you better bang for your buck over time and the pressure from the sink gives you cold water faster than a gravity-fed pitcher. Also, the most advanced faucet-mounted filters tend to handle more contaminants than their pitcher counterparts. On the flip side, faucet mounts can be clunky and sinks with hand-held or pull-out faucets can’t accommodate them. Plus, there’s a simplicity to pitchers that faucet mounts just can’t match. Which one is best for you is up to you. Filter lifetime: 40 gallons How long it takes: 5 mins First, the important stuff: The Mavea Elemaris is certified to remove more of the NSF-53 crud than most pitcher filters: cadmium, copper, mercury, atrazine, benzene, simazine, and tetrachloroethylene. And when it comes to taste, we were pleased: It reduced the TDS level in our water from 172 to 148, which puts it right at the sweet spot.

“I’ve found that if you do any baking, a TDS of 150 makes a far better product,” says Beeman. If you start making pancakes with 150 TDS water, you won’t go back. The flavor change is just that dramatic.” (This is also the same formula Beeman developed for Starbucks coffee). The Elemaris also stands out for its thoughtful design. Water from the faucet pours through a spring-loaded cap that works like a doggy door. (Most pitcher filters use hinged caps on the top of the filter that have a tendency to flap around and fall off.) And most strikingly, it touts a feature all pitchers should have, but don’t: Everything stays in place when you pour. The lid doesn’t fall off; the filter doesn’t come crashing out. Only a lovely, controlled stream of water streaming smoothly to its destination. Unlike most carbon-activated filters, Mavea’s filters don’t require any pre-soaking, so you don’t have to wait to get your water. The company has a nifty recycling program for them too.

Since carbon alone can’t filter metals, the filters also have a plastic resin that acts like a magnet — it works, but it’s not-so-ecofriendly. To compensate, you can drop your used filters off at a store, or stock up a sack of six, request a pre-paid shipping label, and mail them off to their second life. Surprised our top pick isn’t from a brand you recognize, like Brita or PUR? We weren’t all that familiar with Mavea, either, before our testing starting — or so we thought. Mavea might be new to the US water filter market (it launched here in 2008), but it’s no stranger to the game. In fact, Mavea is actually the same company behind the original Brita filters. Brita GMBH, a German company, used to own the Brita brand in the US, but sold its US rights to the brand to Clorox Co. (yep, the bleach makers) back in 2000. At the same time, it signed a non-compete agreement promising the company wouldn’t sell water filters in the US until 2005. When 2008 rolled around, it relaunched in the US under the brand Mavea, one-upping Brita with better-fitting filters that don’t require pre-soaking and a micromesh fabric to keep pesky charcoal bits from filtering through.

(Clorox’s Brita brand had to improve its filters to keep up!) So, while you might not know Mavea by name, you’re more familiar with the company than you think. Filter lifetime: 150 gallons How long it takes: 7 min We like that the Aquagear is certified to eliminate an impressive list of contaminants (it’s one of the only gravity-based pitcher filters with the NSF-401 distinction). Aquagear also has a lifetime guarantee and its filter lasts longer than most pitchers: 150 gallons. m38a1 air cleaner hoseHowever, we weren’t blown away by its design.moso natural air purifying bag canada In fact, we were nearly splashed away. airpura h600 air purifier reviewsWhen we poured water, the pitcher’s spout cover never could open.

The little white plastic flap kept getting stuck and the water sprayed out like a busted downspout, not a thing meant to serve dinner guests. The Aquagear pitcher is more expensive than its competitors, and for $70, we expect not to get soaked. Aquasana Powered Water Filtration System Filter lifetime: 320 gallons How long it takes: 1 min The Aquasana PWFS main benefit is speed: Fill up a pitcher; mount it on the base; and it’ll suck your water down and through a ringer of filters in 55 seconds flat. It’s faster than any other system because it’s using a motor, not just gravity. But it’s a loud and bulky giant that has to sit on the counter near an outlet. For the entire 55 seconds the machine sounds like an air compressor — and that whine makes the minute feel loooooong. Also, when you’re not expecting it, the Aquasana makes loud industrial noises when it’s calibrating. But, if you’re after major contaminant removal, this guy’s got it: NSF-401, check!

And we can imagine a world (maybe a house that’s already loud because it’s packed with a soccer team of 9-year-olds) where speed will trump silence. Brita Grand Pitcher – One We Don’t Recommend At first touch, the Brita Grand seemed great: It could fit lots of water and had a no-slip rubber-grip handle. But the initial intrigue faded quickly: A rubber stopper on the flip-up top already started coming unglued as soon as we touched it. The top of the filter itself also didn’t click tightly into the unit — anytime we weren’t super conservative with our pouring angle, the filter fell out. Once, the filter hit the lid, knocked it off, and spilled all of the water. We also caught water circumventing the filter altogether — in fact, the Brita’s best quality (its sturdy clear plastic) made the issue all the more visible. The few dollar savings on the initial pitcher ($32 instead of $40 for the Mavea) aren’t worth it if you have to mind dam-breaking filter fallout.

Brita might have the brand-name recognition, but it didn’t win this contest. PUR Ultimate Horizontal Water Filter Filter lifetime: 100 gallons Of the five faucet filters we hand-tested, PUR was the only one that was NSF-401-certified. We also liked how easily the PUR was to install: It has “one-click” installation technology — all you have to do is hold down a couple buttons on the side of the unit, press it up to your faucet, let go, and the faucet mounts nice and tight. There are a few negatives about the PUR. The first is its bulkiness: it’s downright giant. When we did dishes, the PUR was always in the way. Also, its “chrome” and “stainless steel” finishes are really just a metallic film over plastic. When we first took it out of the box, it looked pretty, but it felt cheap — and many reviewers complain that after some use, the housing of the PUR filter cracks or leaks water. We personally didn’t have any issues with leaks, but aren’t surprised that the featherweight plastic may not hold up over time.

PUR has addressed this by offering a metal adapter attachment for free to customers who have problems and offers a 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee. It’s easy to install and filters out pretty much everything you’d want gone, so it’s worth a shot. Culligan FM-25 Faucet Mount Water Filter Filter replacement price: $7 Filter lifetime: 200 gallons If we were judging on design alone, the FM-25 would take the top spot for faucet-mount filters. It’s made of real metal, and has a compact seriousness. It feels like an actual part of a sink, not like a shiny, plastic barnacle. The filter trigger is a metal pin: Pull it out and wait for the water to flow through. It takes longer to trigger than the plastic switches on the PUR or Brita, but it also feels like it’ll outlast them. Turn off the faucet and the filter defaults back to unfiltered water — a super-handy feature that’s unique among its competitors. The FM-25 is also the cheapest: Its $7 filters last for an average of 200 gallons.

That’s twice as long as the PUR or Brita faucet filters that run roughly $20 each. In other words, looking simply at cost, a family of four would pay about $1,200 less over 10 years for the Culligan than they would for a PUR Ultimate filter. Again, though, the more contaminants a filter removes, the harder it has to work. What made the FM-25 miss top spot was the shorter list of NSF-53 contaminants it filters out. It only catches four: lead, atrazine, cysts, and/or turbidity. That’s part of the reason the filter lasts as long as it does: it just doesn’t have to work as hard. If all you want is good-tasting water and don’t mind the shorter list of targeted junk, we highly recommend it. Brita Complete Faucet Filtration System On the whole, the Brita Complete was also simple to install, and it is NSF 53-certified to filter out dozens of health-related contaminants. And, it’s a lot smaller. But there are a few reasons it couldn’t measure up to the PUR: It doesn’t have any NSF-401 certifications and it only carries a 90-day warranty, compared to PUR’s two years.