As for the LifeStraw pitchers, they are attractive in their own right and use the same filter, so they would perform the same as the dispenser. If a pitcher fits your needs or aesthetics better than a dispenser, go for it. They’re quite tall—a little over 11 inches for the 7-cup models, and 12.5 inches for the 10-cup—which may make them hard to fit into some fridges. And that tall, narrow form, combined with their high-mounted handles, requires a fair bit of wrist strength to tilt and balance them when pouring.
These handy kitchen gadgets work by allowing water to pass through a filter into a reservoir and removing impurities and contaminants in the process. To operate a typical water filter pitcher, you’ll simply pour water from the faucet and let it drip down into the bottom where it’s ready to be poured brita water filter faucet and consumed. This generally takes one or two minutes and you may need to fill the top reservoir twice or even three times and let it filter slowly down in order to fill the pitcher completely. This is the least scientific test we’ll run on the water filter pitchers but still an important one.
Sadly, you will be switching your Brita filter about every other month since their filters only last about 40 gallons. We also spoke with representatives and executives from the companies whose water filter pitchers we tested in order to learn more about how their filters work, and what differentiates them from one another. ZeroWater filters are some of the most expensive pitchers we tested. We looked around for alternatives that might allow cheaper replacement or regeneration of the ion-exchange resin beads, but this process is rare outside of industrial or laboratory use. Nicole Papantoniou is the director of the Kitchen Appliances and Innovation lab, where she oversees all content and testing related to kitchen and cooking appliances, tools and gear.
Brita is probably the best-known of the water filter pitcher brands and it performed well in our testing, second only to the ZeroWater in the overall removal of dissolved materials. LifeStraw, best-known for its outdoors-oriented water filters, also makes pitchers and a dispenser for home use. For design reasons explained below, we’re not too keen on the pitchers, but the dispenser shares the same ease of use, high brita water dispenser capacity, and kid-friendly operation that we love in Pur and Brita’s versions. Moreover, the design of the LifeStraw filter makes it far more resistant to clogging with sediment than Pur’s and Brita’s—we poured gallons of highly rust-laden water through it without issue. If you’ve had a problem with your Pur or Brita filter getting clogged and stopping working, the LifeStraw dispenser may be worth switching to.
Because of that, be sure to change your filter regularly as prescribed by each brand. As you can see in the picture above, the ZeroWater filter on the far right is massive compared to others. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily equal better performance but in this case, the ZeroWater did soundly outperform the others in removing contaminants.
(Any regular-size standard-depth or counter-depth fridge should accommodate either.) The Pur’s deep, cupped handles are more comfortable to hold than the Brita’s thin, flat ones. Also, the Pur has a transparent fill brita water filter faucet tank, so you can see at a glance when it’s time for a refill; the Brita has an opaque tank, so you have to open it to look inside. Using water filters to filter tap water is much cheaper than buying bottled water.
Brita’s best-certified filter, the Longlast+ (also branded the Elite) has more certifications than Pur’s filters. And it’s rated to perform for 120 gallons, or six months, which is three times the rated lifespan of most other filters (including that of the Pur filters and Brita’s basic Pitcher and Dispenser Filter). However, sediment-rich water can clog its particulate filtration design.
For larger households going through lots of water, we recommend the Pur Plus 30 Cup Dispenser. Its large capacity should always leave you with plenty of water on hand. And unlike a pitcher, it can dispense water while the filter is still working. Among Brita’s many pitchers, the iconic 10-cup Standard Everyday Pitcher is our favorite because of its easy-to-clean design.
It’s also the most expensive, unless you’ve already got mostly mineral-free water. Brita is one of the most well-known water filter brands, so it’s no surprise the brand’s Elite water filter did a stellar job in our testing and filtered over 30 contaminants. We checked that these water filters actually work to remove contaminants and improve taste. In our testing, the ZeroWater filter was pitcher perfect, removing all of the TDS from the water we ran through it, finishing with a 0 average reading. ZeroWater is so confident in its filter products that each model comes with a TDS water quality tester to see for yourself how well it works.
When we tested with brand-new and well-used water-pitcher filters, we found that carbon filters are very effective at removing chlorine for long past their rated life. Comparing these filter categories to bottled water brands, Evian and Arrowhead match the modest mineral levels of our tap water at 300–400 parts per million. (Perrier and Gerolsteiner are two or three times higher.) There are also bottled products that go through reverse-osmosis treatment to get near-zero levels of dissolved solids, like Dasani and Aquafina. Most bottled water sits somewhere in the middle, at between 50 and 150 ppm. The Clearly Filtered pitcher took 10 minutes to filter one cup of water.