Comment by amluto

There is a 10x difference between (1-efficiency) for the two filter media choices. Explanation needed as to why this is at all relevant.

Your comment is like observing that car A burns 87 octane gasoline and another burns 89 octane gasoline and claiming, without explanation, that one of them accelerates faster because (90-octane) is 3x lower.

hint: the bigger purifier wins because it has a more powerful, more power hungry fan pushing air through it. Its performance might be further improved (depending on the fan and motor characteristics) by putting a less efficient, lower pressure drop filter in because more air would go through it per unit time.

Meanwhile, two IKEA filters will outperform it in every measure, including cost, noise, and power consumption. But their efficiency will still be lower.