I tried 4 top-rated handheld fans on Amazon under £20 to beat the heat (and hormones)

Not only is the weather heating up, but I've got to the stage in life whereby a fan is an essential everyday item (thanks, perimenopause). 

To help beat the heat and hormones, I keep a handheld fan from Amazon close by. But after my last one made an untimely departure, I decided to try a few of the top-rated models on Amazon under £20 to see how they performed in some key areas – portability, wind power, battery life and charging method. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have been switching between each fan to see how they hold up when I need them most – a bit of light relief while reading in bed (following these expert fan hacks), on my morning commute, in stuffy meeting rooms and days out with the kids, to mention a few. 

I've listed them below in order of how well they each performed, starting with a quick list outlining key features of each fan, and a more detailed look at them individually underneath. 

Quick list: Handheld fan on Amazon

• JSdoin Handheld portable fan: £9.99 at Amazon
  5 speeds, surprisingly quiet, can hang around neck, includes aromatherapy tablets 
• Gaiatop Mini Portable fan: £9.99 at Amazon
  Very small and light, highly portable, powerful for its size
• EasyAcc Handheld Fan: £11.52 at Amazon
  Bulky, very powerful, extra long range, noisiest of them all
• JISULife 3-in1 min hand fan: £14.39 at Amazon
  Very portable, fiddly to open, flashlight, doubles as power bank
  
  

Handheld fans on Amazon: Tried and Tested

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I had a £20 budget for my next handheld fan on Amazon, so this definitely wasn't a case of just choosing the cheapest. But it was a very nice surprise to find such good performance and build from a fan under £10. 

One of the main reasons this is my top pick is the very thing I thought would put me off it, and that's the ability to hang it around your neck. For a start I thought it would look ridiculous, but also not be very practical (bouncing/swinging around etc). However, the more I wore it, the more I didn't want to take it off. The fact that you can tilt the head of this fan means you can hang it comfortably, but tilt the head to still get a direct flow of very refreshing air and still be hands-free. It's genius (even if it does look a little odd). 

I also really like the digital display on this handheld fan, it makes it really easy to see how much battery is left, when it is fully charged and what speed/setting it is on. It has two more speed options than every other fan on this list, and they all have enough weight behind them to keep you cool. Of the four I tried, this one was the quietest, which was also a surprise considering there are two others with smaller blades. 

It also held up in my battery test. I placed them all on full pelt and left them running for three hours straight. The box promises 8-15 hours worth of use, so I would have been surprised had it stopped, but it was still firing away, with no sign of slowing. 

The only downside to this is its size. When it comes to portability, it's the second biggest and took up a fair bit of room in my bag. But it's other features outweighed this for me – a great little fan, at a bargain price. 

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Upon first glance at the reasons to avoid above, you may well wonder why I have placed this Gaiatop mini handheld fan on Amazon as my second choice. It's quite noisy for its size, there's no charging indicator, it doesn't stand without the base and you can't tilt the head. However, despite all that, with four fans to choose from, when I am popping out, the majority of the time I choose this one to take with me. 

And the reason for that is its size. It so small and lightweight, it takes up little space and I barely notice the weight in my bag. It comes with a lanyard to attach it to your bag so it doesn't get lost, and, for its size, it's remarkably powerful. When you compare the top and second options here, they are both the same price, but the JSdoin model offers much more for under £10. However the Gaiatop wins for me when it comes to convenience. 

The battery test, which saw this running at top speed for three hours straight definitely put a dent in this one. I could see the difference in the power it was throwing out, but there was still enough to offer a very refreshing breeze. 

There's no frills or unique features here, but if you want a powerful, discreet fan with decent battery life and really convenient to carry around, this one is hard to beat. 

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If it's power you're after, this EasyAcc handheld fan on Amazon is the one for you. The difference in power between this fan and all the others is significant, impressively so for a fan so small (and less than £2 more than the two above). If I'm working from home and a desk fan, this is the one I would pick above all the rest, for the sheer power and distance the airflow travels. I would take it to work for the same reason, but the volume rules it out, sadly. It's the biggest and noisiest of all the handheld fans on Amazon I tested. 

In terms of portability, its size makes it quite bulky. You can fold it in half, but the overall size of it means it still takes up a fair bit of space in my bag. The fact that you can fold it does mean you can use it hands-free (there's no separate stand included), and it has a click mechanism which means whatever position it is in is fixed and sturdy. 

Much like the Gaiatop handheld fan above, this is a very simple, no frills fan, which does what it's meant to well. If you like a handheld fan to be really powerful, or are after an alternative to an electric desk fan, this Easyacc model is definitely worth considering. 

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If this was just a fan, I'll be honest, I wouldn't have included it in this list, mainly because there are three others that do the job of keeping you cool a lot better that this one. However, this mini handheld fan does have some extra features, that make it good value for money. 

But let's start with what it's intended for - the fan. It has two speed settings, the least on this list, but both provide a decent enough airflow to keep you cool. This is the only fan included that isn't enclosed, but it has soft blades, which cut out automatically if touched while running, both of which are good safety features. The design is adjustable, so it can standalone, and it folds away, making it very portable - it would easily fit in most pockets. 

But it's surprisingly noisy for such a small device. And the open/closing method is really fiddly. Luckily there are two methods, so if you don't have nails that will fit in the frankly tiny gap between the cover and main body to pull it open, you can push it from the base to make it pop open. 

The company claims the long battery power on this list - up to 21 hours. When testing them all for three hours on full speed, granted it's nowhere near that number, but it was going strong, with no visible sign of it losing any power after that time. The added value comes from elsewhere with this device, which also doubles as a power bank and has a flashlight – which is surprisingly strong – built in.