Opolar Air Duster Review: Every PC Owner Needs One!

POSITIVES

✓ Rechargeable

No more cans of air

✓ Solid RPM

Still have to suck it up with a vacuum off the floor though

✓ Easy to hold

More convenient than a can

NEGATIVES

✘ Price Tag

Costs equivalent of 18 cans of air

✘ Thick Nozzle

Won't squeeze through some tighter cracks

✘ Micro-USB

Would have been nice to have USB-C with price tag

Purchase Price: $69.99

Buy on Amazon

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As a tech enthusiast, one of the most challenging things I have to deal with on a day to day basis is managing the hair debris of my roommates. I’m constantly cleaning up after two adult shedding dogs as well as a shedding adult wife who both have free reign over the house. As you can probably expect from a household like this, hair and dust literally hit every nook and cranny. My desktop is under constant attack from floating dog hair. My keyboard inseams are constantly infiltrated by loose strands of DNA. It’s a nightmare to clean, that’s for sure. One staple for computing maintenance has always been cans of compressed air. They’re usually $4 or so each can and they were the de facto electronics cleaner to get rid of that unwanted debris. After emptying a can, you’d dispose of it and buy a new can. That’s so last century! Like with everything else during this fourth industrial revolution, canned air can now be reusable thanks to a recharging battery. I’ve been using an Opolar air duster for more than a year now and ironically it is my most often used technology accessory. Does that automatically make it worth the investment?

What does it do?

Let’s start off with the price tag: around $70 will get you one air duster. That sounds like a huge number when you can probably buy three 10 oz. cans of compressed air for about $15 on Amazon. That’s roughly 18 cans of compressed air for the cost of one electronic air blower. So what exactly are the benefits of having a battery powered air duster over a traditional can of air? For one, you’ll never run out of air. There’s a convenient relief knowing that you won’t ever come across that moment where you are down to the last can of air and it runs out on you, thus forcing you to wait until a new can is acquired to continue those chores. The worst case scenario with this air duster is that the 6,000 mAh battery runs out while you’re using it (because you didn’t charge it up beforehand) and you have to wait 3 hours to have it fully charged. I’ve never needed to continuously use it for up to 30 mins to finish my chores, but that’s what it’s advertised to be able to endure. Even five minutes charging might be enough to get you enough juice to finish your cleaning. Like a smartphone or tablet, charging is done through power transfer in a port. On this Opolar, we have a micro-USB port on the back of the handle grip. Seeing as this isn’t something I’m transporting outside of my house, I won’t complain about it being micro-USB instead of USB-C, but for $70, it would have been nice to share the same cable as just about every modern electronic device I own.

The way the air duster works is quite simple, pull the trigger and air comes out of the long nozzle. You can press and hold the trigger to push air out. Releasing the trigger will manually stop the air flow. Quickly double pressing the trigger will set the device into automatic mode where it will keep blowing air out when there’s no finger pushing against the trigger. If you’re used to traditional air cans, this has a thicker nozzle than those extremely thin red ones we’re all accustomed to seeing. That does make it slightly harder to get into those crevices between keys of a keyboard with spot on precision. However, that weakness is compensated by the 33,000 RPM pushed by this duster. Canned air really only operates in small bursts, puffs if we want to be exact. While those compressed breaths are actually more powerful than what the Opolar is capable of replicating in an operational standpoint, with a battery powering the action of the air blowing, a consistent pressure of air can be exerted which is actually quite effective. If you’re worried about the force of air being too strong for your mechanical parts, simple physics applies as you can just pull the Opolar further away so that when the air reaches the parts, it’ll be weaker. You can do the opposite by moving the nozzle closer to a part for a more compact stronger force.  

I’ve used this air duster to clean my PC, my desktop, my chair cracks, my arcade cabinets and my collection of nerd statues. It legitimately has knocked off any debris I’ve pointed it at. When compared to canned air, this is also much more comfortable to hold while operating. Canned air usually requires your grip to be top heavy like a spray can. This is more like a radar gun. I’ll be honest, as someone who is a self-aware OCD freak, I do find it oddly relaxing while blowing away loose pieces of hair and dust from my setups. It’s seen quite a lot of action in the last couple of years.   

Reusable Dust Relocator

The dust and hair do disappear from your peripheral, but they simply relocate, usually onto your floor. The actual marketing phrase should be “Reusable Dust Relocator.”

I did find it rather funny that one of the Amazon listings bestowed the title of “Reusable Dust Destroyer” to this little device. Contrary to marketing phrases, these air dusters and any type of canned air, don’t actually destroy dust. The dust and hair do disappear from your peripheral, but they simply relocate, usually onto your floor. The actual marketing phrase should be “Reusable Dust Relocator.” So technically, this is a part one of two chore as you’ll also need a vacuum cleaner to truly get rid of that pesky dust enemy. What I find beneficial about these types of products is the realization of just how much waste we used to generate with the previous way of doing the same tasks. Yes, electricity isn’t a get out of jail card towards the environment, but one of these plastic bodies with a lithium ion battery inside can possibly prevent the disposal of hundreds of canned air bottles. Is that enough to offset the reoccurring disposal of cans of air? I would like to think that the tradeoff would be beneficial eventually, not to mention monetarily as well. 

Who would buy it?

I highly recommend anyone who uses canned air religiously with their PCs to switch over to an electronic air duster. Regardless if you feel that it will help the environment or not, this is just a better operating and better functioning tool to get the job done. I really can’t muster a valid point to use a traditional canned air for any scenario over something like this. Two years in and after using this thing every week, it’s held up as if it were just out of the box. You never really know about durability with these made in China, off-brand Amazon products, but in my case, I’m quite satisfied with how this has held up. With all the relocation of dust I’ve done, I’d say this Opolar air duster was well worth the investment to leave an archaic way of life.      

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