Same heat-up, same rung of the price ladder, and then a straight swap: seven hundred watts against eighty-six milliliters.
By Scooter M., enthusiast, crease control · Published
The Steamfast if you want to finish the job on one fill, the PurSteam if you need the power. Both heat in 30 seconds and both sit on the same rung of the price ladder, so neither of those decides it. The PurSteam SteamPulse publishes 1,700 watts, the fourth-highest figure of any handheld here, against the Steamfast Virtuoso's 1,000. The Steamfast answers with a 296 ml tank against 210 ml, a published one-year warranty the PurSteam does not offer, and about a third of a pound less to hold. Both listings claim fifteen minutes of continuous steam; only one of those claims survives the arithmetic.
We earn a commission if you buy through the links on this page, at no extra cost to you. It does not change which steamer we rank first — the ranking comes from published specifications and the arithmetic on our method page. We have not tested these units. Full disclosure.
The published figures
PurSteam PUR0027 against Steamfast SF1-1003-43, read from the live listings
PurSteam SteamPulse
Steamfast Virtuoso
Model
PUR0027
SF1-1003-43
Power
1,700 W
1,000 W
Tank
210 ml
296 ml
Heat-up
30 s
30 s
Weight
2.16 lb
1.8 lb
Dimensions
Not published
6.1" x 4.5" x 9.5"
Warranty
Not published
1 year manufacturer
Voltage
Not published
Not published
Claimed run time
15 min
15 min
These two machines agree on exactly two figures: the heat-up, and the run time each one advertises. Only one of those is true of both.
Thirty seconds is not a selling point on either machine, whatever the PurSteam's title says about fast heat-up. It is the modal figure in this class — more than half the handhelds on this site that publish a heat-up at all publish exactly thirty seconds — so the two are tied on the specification one of them leads with. Price does not separate them either. These are neighbors on the ladder rather than a cheap one and an expensive one, and the live figures sit in the buy buttons rather than in this sentence, because they move.
What is left is the trade every handheld buyer actually makes, stripped of everything else: power against water. Seven hundred watts in one direction, eighty-six milliliters in the other.
Both listings advertise fifteen minutes. Only one of them can
This is the most useful thing on the page and it is arithmetic rather than opinion. A 1,875 W element boils roughly 30 ml of water a minute, and the rate scales with power — the convention this site applies everywhere, set out in full on the methodology page. Run both machines through it.
What fifteen minutes of continuous steam would actually require
PurSteam SteamPulse
Steamfast Virtuoso
Power
1,700 W
1,000 W
Boil rate at that power
about 27 ml a minute
about 16 ml a minute
Tank
210 ml
296 ml
Run time the tank supports
about 8 minutes
about 18 minutes
Run time the listing claims
15 minutes
15 minutes
Water needed for that claim
about 400 ml
about 240 ml
Both figures are calculated from the listings' own published wattage and capacity. Neither is a measurement, because we have not held either machine.
The PurSteam would need roughly 400 ml to steam for fifteen minutes at 1,700 watts. It has 210. The Steamfast would need about 240 ml to do the same at 1,000 watts, and it has 296 — so it could run nearly nineteen minutes and advertises fifteen. Two listings, the same number, and it is optimistic by about double on one and modest on the other.
None of this makes PurSteam unusual. Every maker in this category quotes run time the optimistic way, and we say so on the PurSteam brand page rather than treating it as a scandal. What is unusual is a listing at this end of the market quoting a figure its own tank beats, which is what Steamfast has done.
What seven hundred watts actually buys
One thousand watts is the floor for making woven cotton look pressed rather than damp. The Steamfast clears that floor and no more, which makes it a knits, synthetics and light-cotton machine. Seventeen hundred sits in the band where heavy cotton twill and a structured shoulder start to become workable at all. Only the two 700 W units here publish less than the Steamfast, and only the three machines sitting on the 1,875 W ceiling publish more than the PurSteam.
If your wardrobe is jersey, shirting and synthetics, the extra seven hundred watts is headroom you will not use — and you would be buying it at the cost of a tank that empties in about eight minutes. If you steam suits or heavy cotton, that power is the entire reason to choose the PurSteam, and the short run is what it costs.
Neither machine solves linen, and no handheld does. That fabric wants contact and pressure, which is why the steamer-versus-iron answer is fabric-dependent rather than universal.
Weight, and what each pound is carrying
The Steamfast is the lighter machine — 1.8 pounds against 2.16, about a third of a pound — and it is lighter while carrying more water, which is the part worth pausing on. Per pound of machine you get about 164 ml of tank on the Steamfast and about 97 on the PurSteam: two thirds more water for every pound in your hand.
Power-to-weight runs the other way, as it must — about 790 watts per pound on the PurSteam against about 560 on the Steamfast. Neither is close to the Rowenta XCEL, which publishes 1,875 watts at 1.4 pounds and holds the best power-to-weight figure on this site by a distance. If a rail of shirts is your weekly job, that is the machine to look at instead, and it publishes a warranty as well.
One of them puts something in writing
Six of the twenty-one handhelds on this site publish a warranty term at all. The Steamfast is one of them, at one year, and its listing goes further than the bare term: it states the company will replace the product inside that year, and names Andover, Kansas as where the machine is designed and supported. At this end of the market that is unusual enough to count as a reason on its own.
The PurSteam publishes neither a warranty term nor dimensions. Those are different kinds of silence — a missing warranty is a missing promise, a missing dimension is a missing fact — but both leave a buyer with less to go on. Steamfast publishes a 6.1 by 4.5 by 9.5 inch box, about 260 cubic inches, so you can tell before you buy whether it fits the shelf you had in mind. For the PurSteam you cannot.
Neither publishes a voltage, and that gap matters more for the Steamfast, because its own listing calls it a compact travel steamer. A machine marketed for travel that does not state its voltage is not one to take abroad on faith. The travel page covers the units that publish dual voltage properly.
What neither table row captures
The PurSteam's case beyond wattage is the controls. It publishes two steam levels selected on an LED display, a standby mode alongside the auto shut-off, and a brush frame attachment that lifts the pile on thick or textured fabric. Two settings matter more than they sound: a single-setting handheld gives you one answer for silk and for denim, and that answer is wrong for one of them.
The Steamfast's case beyond the tank is the plumbing and the cord. Seven steam outlets rather than one port spread the output across the head, and a 7.5-foot cord reaches a rail without an extension — a dull specification that quietly decides whether a machine is annoying to use. Neither of these is a reason to buy on its own, and neither appears in a scored metric, which is exactly why the rubric is published rather than presented as the whole answer.
Where both are the same
Both heat in 30 seconds, the modal figure for this class and the one specification on which they are genuinely tied.
Both tanks are removable, so both refill at a tap rather than over the sink. At this price that has stopped being a differentiator.
Both publish auto shut-off. Several cheaper handhelds publish no safety feature at all.
Neither publishes a voltage, so neither is a safe bet abroad, whatever the marketing copy calls them.
Neither reaches linen, and only the PurSteam gets near structured tailoring.
Both are handhelds, so both are capped by run time in a way a standing steamer is not. Eighteen minutes is good for this class and still a fraction of what 1.8 liters on a stand will do.
Who should buy which
The decision
If you
Buy
Want to finish a session without refilling
Steamfast Virtuoso — about 18 minutes against about 8
Steam heavy cotton or structured tailoring
PurSteam SteamPulse — 1,700 W is the band where that works
Want a warranty in writing
Steamfast Virtuoso — one year; PurSteam publishes no term
Care what it weighs in your hand
Steamfast Virtuoso — 1.8 lb, and more tank inside it
Want two steam levels and a readout
PurSteam SteamPulse — an LED display and two settings
Need to know it fits a particular shelf
Steamfast Virtuoso — it publishes its dimensions; PurSteam does not
On published figures the Steamfast takes more of this page than its wattage suggests: the tank, the weight, the warranty, the dimensions, and the only run-time claim here that survives being checked. The PurSteam takes the one specification that changes what a steamer can do rather than how long it does it for. So the question is not which machine is better. It is whether your wardrobe asks for 1,700 watts. If it does not, the extra power is headroom you pay for in refills. If it does, nothing about the Steamfast's longer run will make 1,000 watts press a cotton twill shirt.
The two machines
Ranked on published specifications. Tap a row for the full write-up; the price button goes to Amazon.
#
Product
Best for
Spec score
Price
1
PurSteam SteamPulse PUR00271,700 W and 210 ml for less than most of the field, with a run-time claim its own tank cannot support.
Steamfast Virtuoso Handheld Steamer1,000 watts and a removable 296 ml tank, with a one-year manufacturer warranty most units at this price do not publish.
1,700 watts is the fourth-highest figure any handheld on this site publishes, behind only the three units that sit on the 1,875 W ceiling. Paired with 210 ml it is a genuinely conventional, sensible handheld — more power than the Beautural, more tank than the Rowenta XCEL, and cheaper than the Conair Turbo ExtremeSteam.
The run-time claim is where it overreaches. PurSteam states up to 15 minutes of continuous steam from 7.1 fluid ounces. Run the arithmetic this site uses everywhere — a 1,875 W element boils roughly 30 ml of water a minute, scaling with power — and 1,700 W converts about 27 ml a minute, so 210 ml is closer to eight minutes flat out. Fifteen is a stop-start figure, not a continuous one. Every maker in the category quotes run time the same optimistic way; PurSteam is not unusual, it is just checkable.
2.16 pounds is the weight to think about. That is heavier than the Rowenta XCEL by three quarters of a pound, with twenty more milliliters of tank to show for it, and on a rail of shirts three quarters of a pound is the difference you notice. The LED display and two steam levels are real conveniences; the brush frame is the usual included attachment.
Good
1,700 W — fourth-highest published wattage of any handheld here, at a below-average price
210 ml tank, removable, with two steam levels on an LED display
Auto shut-off and a standby mode, which several cheaper units do not publish
Not good
The stated 15 minutes of continuous steam is about double what 210 ml at 1,700 W supports
2.16 lb is heavy for the tank it carries
No published warranty term and no published dimensions
Who should not buy it. Skip this if you can get the Rowenta XCEL instead. It publishes more power in a body three quarters of a pound lighter, and it publishes a warranty, which this listing does not.
2. Handheld · A published warranty at the low end
Steamfast Virtuoso Handheld Steamer
1,000 watts and a removable 296 ml tank, with a one-year manufacturer warranty most units at this price do not publish.
A 296 ml removable tank is joint fourth in the handheld class here, level with the Electrolux SnapSteam and behind only the three machines that publish 300 ml. Steamfast rates it at 15 minutes of continuous steam, and removable means you fill it at a tap rather than carrying the machine to the sink.
One thousand watts is the floor for making woven cotton look pressed rather than damp. It clears that floor and no more — this is a knits, synthetics and light-cotton machine, not a tailoring one.
The warranty is the reason to look at it. Steamfast publishes a one-year manufacturer term at a price where most listings publish nothing at all.
Good
296 ml removable tank — larger than every 1,875 W handheld on this site
One-year published manufacturer warranty, unusual at this price
Published auto shut-off and a 7.5-foot cord
Not good
1,000 W sits at the power floor — not enough for tailoring or heavy cotton
1.8 pounds, heavier than the compact travel units
The listing publishes no voltage, so we cannot tell you whether it is safe abroad
Who should not buy it. Skip this if you need to steam cotton shirting or a structured jacket. At 1,000 watts it relaxes knits and synthetics well and stops short of pressed-looking cotton.
Questions people actually ask
+Is PurSteam or Steamfast better?
Neither outright. The PurSteam SteamPulse publishes 1,700 watts against the Steamfast Virtuoso's 1,000, so it is the only one of the two that gets near structured tailoring. The Steamfast publishes a larger 296 ml tank, a lighter 1.8 pound body, a one-year warranty and its dimensions, none of which the PurSteam matches. Both heat in 30 seconds and both sit at a similar price.
+Which one steams longer on a single tank?
The Steamfast, by a wide margin — about 18 minutes against about 8. That is not only the bigger tank. At 1,000 watts it converts water at roughly 16 ml a minute against the PurSteam's 27, so the larger capacity and the lower power compound into nearly two and a half times the run time per fill.
+Do both really run for 15 minutes of continuous steam?
Both listings claim it; only the Steamfast's claim holds up. Fifteen minutes at 1,700 watts would need about 400 ml and the PurSteam's tank is 210 ml, so its realistic figure is about eight minutes flat out. Fifteen minutes at 1,000 watts needs about 240 ml and the Steamfast holds 296, so it is quoting less than its own tank supports.
+Is 1,000 watts enough for a garment steamer?
It is enough for knits, synthetics, silk and light cotton, and it is the floor for making woven cotton look pressed rather than damp. It is not enough for heavy cotton twill or a structured jacket, and no wattage on a handheld is enough for linen.
+Does either one come with a warranty?
The Steamfast Virtuoso publishes a one-year manufacturer warranty and states that the product will be replaced within that year. The PurSteam SteamPulse publishes no warranty term at all, so your recourse there is the retailer's returns window.
+Can I take either of these abroad?
Neither listing publishes a voltage, so we cannot tell you that either is safe on 230 V. That matters more for the Steamfast, whose own listing describes it as a compact travel steamer. For machines that publish dual voltage, see the travel steamers page.
