Oil-filled radiators and ceramic fan heaters
An oil-filled radiator heats sealed thermal oil inside a finned body, and the fins give the warmth to the room. None of the seven in this list has a fan. A ceramic fan heater passes air over a heated ceramic element and blows it out, so it moves air and, Which? says, gets going much more quickly than other types, though it can be noisy. Electrical Safety First adds that an oil-filled radiator takes longer to warm up and keeps giving out heat after it is switched off, and that its fins stay hot for a while.
That does not make one type more efficient than the other. Each turns the electricity it uses into heat. The useful questions are how the warmth reaches you, how long you need it for and what the heater asks of you in return. Our comparison goes through those, and the buying guide gives the full checklist.
Rated watts are not room warmth
Makers print a rated input in watts. In this list the radiators run from 1500 W (the De’Longhi Radia S TRRS0715E.G) to 2500 W (the two Pro Breeze models and the Russell Hobbs), and the fan heaters are all 2000 W on their highest setting, dropping to 1000 W or 1200 W on low. A higher figure means more electricity drawn while the heater is on. It does not mean a warmer room, which depends on insulation, draughts, outside conditions and any other heat in the home.
Room sizes are the makers’ own claims and use different units. Pro Breeze gives square metres, up to 30 m2 for its 2500 W radiators and up to 15 m2 for its fan heaters, while De’Longhi gives a working capacity in cubic metres, 60 m3 for the 2000 W radiators and 45 m3 for the 1500 W one. Every one of the twelve also carries a caution that it is only suitable for well insulated spaces or occasional use, and Which? says portable heaters are not designed to heat a whole home.
Dials, digital panels and timers
Five of the seven radiators have a built-in timer: the two Pro Breeze models, with a 24 hour timer (a dial of 15 minute segments on the PB-H02), and the three De’Longhi models, which set start and off times from 0.5 to 24 hours on a panel. The Russell Hobbs and VonHaus radiators have none. Among the fan heaters only the De’Longhi Capsule You&Me lists a timer on the maker’s page. De’Longhi’s pages for the two towers do not mention one, although Amazon’s titles do, and the two Pro Breeze fan heaters have none. Four models come with a remote control.
A built-in timer is not permission to add a plug-in one. The Pro Breeze and Russell Hobbs manuals both say not to use the heater with an external programmer or timer switch, and Pro Breeze and Russell Hobbs also advise against extension leads.
Size, weight and moving it
The radiators are the heavy ones. VonHaus prints 6.9 kg for its 9 fin model and De’Longhi prints 14.36 kg for the Dragon 4, with the Pro Breeze and Radia S models in between. All seven have castors or wheels, and the Pro Breeze, Russell Hobbs and VonHaus manuals describe fitting them yourself. The fan heaters weigh between 1.3 kg and 2.36 kg on the makers’ pages.
Sizes and weights often disagree between sources. For the Pro Breeze PB-H02 the manual, Pro Breeze’s page and Amazon give three different sets of figures, and the cards show which source each number comes from. Measure the space against the maker’s figures and check the rating label on the unit when it arrives.
What the makers do not say
The six De’Longhi pages list rated power, functions and some safety features, but we could not find an English manual for any of them, so their distances and unattended-use rules were not read. The cards say so, and the manual in the box is the authority. Elsewhere the gaps are smaller but real: the Pro Breeze PB-H02 manual does not describe the tip-over switch that Pro Breeze’s page lists, VonHaus prints no clearance distance, and Russell Hobbs gives three different clearances in one manual.
A missing line on a card means the information we read did not cover it. It is not a sign that the feature is absent, and it is not a sign that it is present.
Safety: the manual comes first
Electrical Safety First says to stand a heater on a level surface, keep it at least one metre from anything that can burn, avoid an extension lead and never leave it running unattended or while you are asleep. The manuals we read agree on the last point: the Pro Breeze manuals say not to use the heater while sleeping or near a person who is, and the Russell Hobbs and VonHaus manuals say not to leave it unattended. Distances differ by maker, from 50 cm on all sides in the Pro Breeze manuals (with combustible items at least 0.9 m away) to the 1 m Electrical Safety First gives, and where they differ the larger distance is the safer reading.
Hot surfaces can burn children and pets, and a tip-over or overheat cut-out lowers some risks without removing the risk of fire. Never dry clothes on or close to a heater: Electrical Safety First says so, as do the Pro Breeze and VonHaus manuals, and the Russell Hobbs manual says never to put clothing on top of the heater. Shopicks makes no claim about the safety certification of any model.
How this list was made
We chose models that differ in type, controls and maker, not different colours of one model, and we kept a model only where we could open its exact Amazon.co.uk listing and match it to a maker page. We rejected eleven candidates, among them a Dreo heater whose generation could not be tied to a maker document, a Dimplex tower whose Amazon.co.uk page returned an error on four attempts, and heaters from brands with no maker page we could find.
On 25 October 2026 we searched the government’s list of product safety alerts, reports and recalls for each brand and model and found no entry for any of the twelve. That search is only as complete as the list’s own text search, and it is not a statement that a product is free of faults. The list is not a ranking. One card is marked as a featured example to illustrate the page, and the card says why. Prices, stock, star ratings and review counts are not shown because Amazon only permits them from its own site, so each button takes you to Amazon.co.uk to check the current price and availability.
