Dyson Supersonic blows away the competition, but it comes with a steep price

My wife cradled the new Dyson Supersonic hair dryer like it was a newborn baby. Her eyes beseeched me, “Please don’t take this away.”

Minutes earlier, she had tried the unusual-looking hair dryer for the first time. I’d tapped my wife to stand in as my proxy because of our obvious hirsute differences. I haven’t used a blow dryer in 20 years, but my wife uses one almost every morning for upwards of 30 minutes.

When I first wrote about the Dyson Supersonic almost six months ago, she, like many others, was intrigued. 

Different, yet familiar

At a glance, the Dyson Supersonic resembles a tiny version of one of Dyson’s popular multiplier fans. That’s no accident. Unlike traditional blow-dryers, which house their motors and fans in the back, the Dyson Supersonic puts its tiny digital motor in the handle. It is, by any measure, a much, much smaller motor, with tinier fan blades, than one found in most blow dryers on the market. However, the motor spins at an insane 110 RPM and forces a jet of air up through the handle and out of the front of the dryer. Read more...