Although this a nicely made product, cheaper — and only slighter bigger — rivals are much more versatile. But while its portable nature and trigger style are perfect for squeezing in the odd PSI or two, this model's rather slow inflation speed and short 15cm air hose make longer pumping jobs tedious.
If, for instance, the tyre's valve is even a few inches above the ground, that short hose means you'll have to hold the unit for the duration. At that point, the auto-stop, when target pressure is reached, becomes rather academic. It probably took longer to type in that mouthful of a name than for the unit to inflate our test tyre from flat.
This is the outright fastest inflator here and it's a cracking piece of kit. The 3m power lead, 85cm air hose, screw-on valve coupling and auto-stop at the desired pressure make it a doddle to use. The Deflate button means correcting over-inflated tyres accurately is just a press away. The best feature of all, though, is a tiny rubber nubbin to place the removed valve cap on, meaning you'll never misplace one again. Only the premium price robs it of more points here.
This leftfield unit from Sealey gets the bulk of the basics right — but often in an odd way. For instance, the generous 5m power lead means the inflator can always be positioned right by the wheel, making its 2m coiled air hose a little excessive. We like the digital gauge and auto-stop facility, but pressure has to be expressed in PSI only, unlike with all the other units here. The gauge, annoyingly, shows target pressure rather than actual pressure, leaving a coloured bar display to chart inflation progress.
Our final niggle is the old-school lever-type tyre coupling. Although it's been around for some years now, it's testimony to Halfords that this model still cuts it so well with newer rivals. If it was launched today, we suspect it would have a Deflate button to go with the screw-on valve coupling, it would probably be a bit smaller, and it would almost certainly come with a carry bag. The good points far outweigh these minor moans, though.
But it only lost out by a mere two seconds. In fact, few inflators are as intuitive to use as this one. The large display shows actual pressure as well as target pressure, and a single knob is used to set the target level. You press it to toggle through PSI, Bar and other units, and twist it to set the value. Here's one of three very similar, and obviously closely related, units that made us question the logic behind Michelin's tiny Top Up model in position In reality, this isn't much bigger, but it has enough grunt to tackle most tyres from fully flat.
The time taken to inflate our test tyre, though not particularly speedy, was comfortably within this unit's minute duty cycle. Considering the budget price, Sakura really hasn't skimped on the extras either. The digital display has a built-in auto-stop, both the power lead and air hose are decent lengths, and the air hose even has a deflate button.
To use them, simply remove the dust cap from the valve on the tyre and push the end of the air hose over it, before pressing or releasing any catch to clamp it in place. The AA recommends checking your tyres every fortnight and doing so when they are cold, as the pressure increases slightly when your tyres warm up through driving. One quick way to test your legality is to place a 20p piece between the grooves.
If the border is still visible on the side touching the tyre, your tyres will probably need replacing soon. Size is probably the most important thing. The smallest inflators are around 20 x 20cm, so you can leave them in your car without losing too much luggage space. Most can be preset to stop inflating when your tyre reaches the correct pressure.
Larger inflators include rechargeable batteries, which make them completely portable. These are a better option if you want to pump up, say, bicycle tyres, without having to wheel the bike next to your car.
You may also need a larger inflator for tyres that need higher-than-average pressures, such as a larger van or campervan. An accurate pressure gauge, decent performance and extremely competitive price make the RAC compressor the best all-round tyre inflator here. The compressor is small, at 20cm long, and weighs just over 1kg.
A long air hose and power lead offer plenty of reach, although stowing them is a bit fiddly. The includes a large white light, as well as a red one for alerting other drivers. Key specs — Inflation time from psi: 2mins 12secs; Power lead length: 3. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the results.
The RTC won straight out of the trap earlier this year, even at a higher price than its predecessor. The market has cut that cost, adding to its competitiveness. Its inflation time is still very good, and the noise level was a touch higher than other rivals. It was 0. The 70cm hose wrapped neatly around the device, and the 3. Neat and well packaged, the zip-up padded bag protects it while being stored. Buy now from Amazon. We could see no changes to this over the preset Ring RAC that won our previous test.
Only its HD sibling beat the 70mm hose length and the 3. We liked the padded zip-up case and the large display, although at some angles it was tricky to make out. On the other hand, the noise increase was the highest, at 58dB. However, the time for the pumping test was excellent, equal third best. Despite a price rise, it keeps its crown, but only just. On paper, the Ryobi looks as if it loses out to the others.
However, the 4Ah battery has masses of power in reserve, and even after all our tests it still showed a full four bars. The Ryobi was peerless in the time it took to inflate and deflate the airbed.
If you already have the charger and battery which can be used with other machines , this compressor is a bargain. The name suggested it had extra power for large tyres and heavier vehicles, and our test inflation time of just 1 minute 28 seconds was the best ever. The unit was also really easy on the ears, at around 72dB. However, at 2. We liked the clear display, and its lead and hose were okay.
Buy now from Halfords. Ring's offering had a long list of attributes, with a large digital display showing the pressure and battery state, and a good hose length 70cm. Setting the target pressure was a doddle and, although the accuracy on the tyre was 1psi optimistic, it only took a stunning 80 seconds to inflate the tyre by 10psi. The Sakura is still the best of the rest and managed to beat its previous inflation time by 32 secs, while being almost totally accurate at the same time.
Its backlit display was clear and the pressure selection was easy. The 60cm hose was reasonable rather than great, although the screw-on connector did include a deflator. Happily, that and the 3. The set-up had the usual three adaptors football, airbed, cycle , an LED light and a thin nylon bag. It is noisier than others but generally, smoother in use. The Wolf is similar in design to the above Sakura, featuring a reasonable 66cm hose, albeit without a deflator.
The noise level was the same, at 51dB over ambient. Its cable reached all four tyres, but was the shortest in our test. Unlike other rivals, it boasts four scales, not three and, while the digital display was clear, it was the smallest here.
The similarities with the Ring RAC were noticeable; both feature a large display, screw-on valve connector, preset function and three scales psi, Bar, kpa which were easy to scroll through.
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