“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water”. This age-old adage by W.H.Auden accurately specifies the importance of water for existence.
Children whining about a stomach ache that too merely after consumption of water is a common sight. What’s more, adults also suffer from a lot of water-borne diseases these days. All this is because of soaring pollution that has made the potable water unfit for consumption.
So, for one to feel like a million, a water purifier is definitely the need of the hour.
There are certain important factors that need to be taken into account while buying the best water purifier for your home. Read our buying guide at the end of this article to learn the ropes.
Our list of 8 Best Water Purifiers in India(2020) right below will ease your job to put the seal on simply the best product.
Best Water Purifiers India
KENT New Grand 8-Litres RO + UV+ UF + TDS Water Purifier
Kent New Grand Water Purifier is undoubtedly the best water purifier available in India right now.
The water purifier comes equipped with multistage RO + UV/ UF purification technology. As a result, it can remove all kinds of input water impurities like chemicals, metal toxins, bacteria, viruses, microorganisms etc. The purified water is healthy and safe to drink.
Kent water purifiers comes with a Pan India service network of 1500 service centers all over India. This makes it extremely easy to get in touch with a service professional for water filter maintenance service needs.
The purifier also features a huge storage tank of 8 litres. It also has a high purification capacity of 20L/hr which makes sure that you get continuous supply of purified water. Other notable features of this water purifier include Save Water Technology and Water Level Indicator.
To summarize, you can never go wrong with the purchase of Kent New Grand Water Purifier.
Havells Max RO+UV Water Purifier – 8 liters
Havells has recently emerged out to be a reputable brand for water purifiers in India. Havells Max is one of the latest water purifiers with the reverse osmosis technology.
With the RO+UV water purification, 100% of water passes through the RO membrane and then UV protection in 7 stages of purification. This is different from a lot of other water purifiers with TDS controller, where only part of water flows into the RO membrane to preserve the natural minerals. Rest of the water is only partially filtered using UV membrane.
Since, 100% of water passes through the RO membrane, this water filter provides superior water purification compared to the other water purifiers.
The water purifier comes with a smart alert system. There are alerts for purification and tank full, and error alerts for UV, SV or pump failure. Yes another advanced feature of the water purifier is the zero splash faucet ensuring smooth flow of the water with no splash.
HUL Pureit Marvella RO+UV+MF+MP Water Purifier
The HUL Pureit Marvells uses an advanced 7 stage water purification process which ensures 100% pure and healthy drinking water. It ensures that the excess TDS is removed and the water is cleared of all the impurities. The 7 stages of purification are:
- Pre-Sediment filter: Visible dirt and impurities are removed
- Membrane protector: Removes bad odor and organic compounds, enhances life of RO membrane
- Mini filter: Further filtration to remove finer particulate impurities
- RO Membrane: Removes hardness, dissolved salts, heavy metals and microbes like bacteria, viruses etc
- UV chamber: Additional stage of purification which destroys viruses, bacteria and parasites
- Micro filtration: Purifies the water of any remaining impurities
- Post RO carbon filter: Adds essential minerals and enhances taste
The Marvella Sleek has a very compact and aesthetic design. It also features a large storage tank with a capacity of 8 litres which makes sure that you never run out of pure water.
Yet another advanced feature of this water purifier, is the filter change alarm which alerts for the filter change with the red indicator on the front panel. This is useful so that you are always 100% protected and only drinking safe and healthy water.
AO Smith Z9 RO+SCMT 10Litre Water Purifier
The AO Smith Z9 is a complete solution if you are looking for an ultramodern, best in class RO water purifier. This water purifier has the most advanced features among all the RO water purifiers available in India right now.
It comes with an advanced 8 stage water purification process which is capable of purifying water from all type of input sources. As you would have guessed, the water purifier doesn’t have TDS regulator, 100% of the water passes through the RO membrane and is double purified by SCMT. This process makes sure that each and every drop is purified of all the impurities.
RO purification results in loss of all the natural essential minerals of the water. The water purifier comes equipped with mineraliser technology which adds back all the natural minerals to the water. This ensures that the water tastes good and has a balanced pH.
Another very important feature of the water purifier is the dedicated hot water faucet. The purifier comes with two different faucets, one for normal water and the other one for hot water. The hot water temperature can be adjusted to 45 degrees or 80 degrees.
Although, the water purifier is a bit expensive, but that is because of the advanced features it has to offer. If budget isn’t a constraint for you, then look no further, AO Smith Z9 is an amazing choice.
Kent Pearl 8-Litre Mineral RO+UV+UF
The Kent Pearl is another stylishly designed water purifier from Kent. The Kent pearl comes with a multistage purification process of RO+UV+UF+TDS. This means that you don’t have to worry about any dissolved impurities, bacteria, viruses, or other contaminants anymore.
The water purifier also comes with an inbuilt TDS controller with patented mineral RO technology. It helps in maintaining the essential minerals in the water, also ensures that water is safe to drink and has a great taste.
Kent is one of the most trusted water purifier brand in India and has a Pan India Service network of more that 1500 service centers. So, you get nothing less than prompt service with dedicated and trained service professionals.
If you are looking for a reverse osmosis water purifier, then this purifier stands tall among the competitors. With Kent’s technology and trust, this is one of the best buys.
Eureka Forbes Aquasure from Aquaguard Delight 7-Litres RO+UV+MTDS
The AquaGuard delight , is a sleek and compact water purifier. It comes equipped with an advanced TDS controller (MTDS), allowing you to adjust the taste of water as per the input source. The water purifier can be used to treat water with TDS of upto 2000 PPM.
The other notable feature of this water purifier is the smart LED indicators. The indicators can indicate status like Power on, purification on and tank full status. Another smart features is the Energy Saving Mode. This switches off the power supply once the water tank is full.
This water purifier is a strong competitor in the market among the RO water purifiers. It’s also backed up by a best in class after sales service from AquaGuard.
Eureka Forbes Aquasure from Aquaguard Smart Plus RO+UV+MTDS
The water purifier features a 6 stage purification technology ensuring that the water is purified of all the input impurities:
- Clarity cartridge: Removes large suspended impurities like dirt and sand
- Chemi Block: Removes organic impurities and eliminates bad odor
- Membrane life enhancer: prevents scaling of dissolved calcium and magnesium
- RO cartridge: Removes TDS, hardness, heavy metals like lead and mercury
- Taste enhancer cartridge: Replenishes the essential minerals and restores the taste
- UV disinfectant chamber: Removes waterborne diseases causing bacteria, making it safe to drink
The water purifier comes with color changing light indicators. Using different colors, the indicators highlight the purification process, full tank, low incoming water pressure, no water supply, and error with the machine.
The cartridge comes with a long life of 6000 litres which provides a hassle-free yearlong protection. The smart TDS regulator replenishes the essential minerals lost during the RO process. This ensures that the output water is tasty and safe.
The water purifier also comes equipped with smart features like voltage fluctuation protection and automatic power off when tank is full.
In all, this water purifier provides good value for money. If you are looking for a RO water purifier with smart features, this water purifier should definitely be on your checkout lists.
Livpure Glo 7 litres RO+UV+ Mineralizer Water Purifier
This water purifier from Livpure is one the most budget friendly RO water purifier in India right now. The purifier comes with and advanced 6 stage water purification process. The purification stages include Sediment Filter, Pre Activated Carbon Filter, RO Membrane, UV chamber, silver impregnated post carbon filter, and mineralizer.
The water purifier also comes with a mineralizer which replenishes the essential minerals. This makes sure that the water is healthy to drink and has a great taste.
The Livpure Glo has other useful features like smart LED indicators for power on, purification on, and tank full status. The system also switches off automatically once the tank is full.
Best Water Purifier – Buying Guide
Pure and healthy water is a basic need of every household. With increasing water pollution, finding the best water purifier based on the source of input water becomes all the more important.
Sources of water pollution
Drinking water is the most valuable resource for human existence. Having clean drinking water is critical need as well. Yet, the earth’s supply of fresh drinking water is depleting. It is estimated that every year unclean water makes a billion people ill and kills 1.8 million.
Water pollution occurs when harmful toxic substances like pesticides, agricultural wastes, industrial wastes including heavy metal impurities like lead, arsenic etc enter the water. These impurities deteriorate the water and increase the TDS of water making it unfit for drinking. Water pollution is not isolated to only surface water. The harmful contaminants can seep through the soil into the ground and thus making the ground water polluted as well.
Usage of excessive chemicals in agriculture is one of the primary contributors to ground water pollution. Besides, the usage of pesticides in farming has extensively increased. The pesticides contain harmful chemicals and metals impurities including sulphur, lead, etc. These contaminants seep in through the soil into the groundwater, and thus making it polluted.
The municipal and industrial water discharge contribute their fair share to the surface water pollution as well. This results in harmful metals like mercury, lead, arsenic, sulphur, etc. getting added to the water making it hazardous for drinking purpose.
The choice of water purifier depends on type of impurities present in the drinking water supply. The usage of correct water purifier can make sure that you can safeguard your family against all of these harmful contaminants in the drinking water.
Types of contaminants in drinking water
Depending upon the different sources of water, there are various impurities that the potable water comes immersed with. Some of these contaminants might be visible to the human eye while others are indiscernible.
Various water-borne diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, etc are caused due to microbial contaminants found in drinking water. Few of these impurities are bacteria, cysts, protozoa, and viruses.
In order to make water drinkable, it is treated by municipal corporations using chlorine, a common disinfectant. But when it is used in large quantities, it leaves a bitter taste and a pungent smell which is detrimental to human health.
So, in order to ensure good health, one must have a water purifier to get rid of these impurities. Purification technologies such as RO, UV, and UF or a combination of these can immensely help in clearing out these contaminants from water and making it safe to consume.
What is TDS in water and why you should measure it?
What is TDS?
TDS stands for total dissolved solids, it represents the concentrations of the dissolved substances in water. The dissolved substances are made of organic and inorganic matters including metals, minerals and ions. TDS in water can be accumulated from various sources like spring minerals, rocks, chemicals produced from factories, fertilizers in farms, drainage pipes, runoff on roads, water supply pipes etc.
Why do you need to measure TDS?
Water with high amount of TDS can have harmful substances like lead, arsenic, copper etc . These substances can have serious health hazards if consumed without purification.
Increased amount of dissolved solids can produce hard water which can leave deposits on surfaces, utensils, fixtures, pipes etc. Hard water causes water filters to wear out sooner.
Also, on the other hands, water will extremely low TDS can be void of essential minerals like magnesium and calcium. Water with extremely low TDS also has a flat taste, which is unacceptable for many.
Therefore, it is important to determine the TDS of water before deciding on what kind of water purifier is needed.
What is an acceptable TDS level?
- Less than 50: Unacceptable; because it is void of essential minerals
- Between 50 – 300: Excellent for drinking
- In range of 300 – 600: Good
- Between 600 – 900: Fair and acceptable
- In range of 900 – 1200: Poor and shouldn’t be used from drinking
- Above 1200: Unacceptable and might have health hazards
How to measure TDS?
The easiest way to measure the TDS of water is using a TDS meter.
TDS meter is a small hand held device which can be dipped in water to check the water TDS. Since the dissolved solids increase the conductivity of water, the TDS meter works by measuring the conductivity of water to determine the TDS.
How do water purifiers regulate TDS?
The natural unfiltered water contains several essential minerals like calcium and magnesium. Also, since the natural water catches a lot of impurities, it also contains a lot of harmful dissolved solids like lead, arsenic, fluorides, heavy metals etc.
Water filters broadly use two kinds of technology to regulate the TDS and maintain some amount of magnesium and calcium.
TDS Controller
With TDS controllers, the water to be purified is divided into two parts. The first part goes through the RO membrane where all the dissolved solids (including essential minerals) are removed. The second part goes through a UV or UF chamber where the essential minerals are largely retained. Later, the RO filtered water is mixed with a small percentage of UV/ UF purified water and hence regulating the TDS of water. The percentage of water going into the UV/ UF chamber can be controlled using the TDS controller valve, thus allowing you to control the TDS based on taste.
Mineralizer
The water purifiers which use mineralizer to regulate TDS, pass 100% of the input water through the RO membrane. The output from the RO membrane is then passed through a mineral cartridge which restores the essential minerals like calcium and magnesium in the right concentration.
This way the water filters make sure that the TDS of water is regulated and kept between 50-300. This also makes sure that the water has essential minerals and has a good taste.
Key differences between TDS controller and Mineralizer
| TDS controller | Mineralizer |
|---|---|
| Some percentage of water is passed through the RO membrane | 100% of the input water is passed through the RO membrane |
| Not suitable for water with high concentration of heavy metals like lead, arsenic, fluorides etc | Since, 100% of water passes through the RO membrane, it is capable of removing most of the impurities including lead, arsenic etc. |
| Provides control over the TDS of filtered water | Generally, there is no control on the TDS of water |
| Small and cheap device | Mineral cartridge which requires annual maintenance |
Water purification technologies
Sediment Filter
Usage of sediment filter along with a water purifier is optional and helps increase the life of water filter RO membrane. It is generally fitted outside the water filter and attached to the water input source. This filter essentially works like a net that catches large suspended impurities and turbidity in water.
You don’t need to install an external sediment filter if the input water doesn’t contain any visible suspended impurities or turbidity. Places where the input water comes without pre-treatment by the municipality should use an external sediment filter.
Generally, sediment filter can be used with all the water purifier types.
Carbon Filter
Carbon filter removes chlorine, volatile organic compounds (VOC), bad odor and unpleasant taste from the water. These filters work using activated carbon. Therefore, as water passes through the carbon, impurities like VOCs and heavy metals become chemically bonded to carbon.
Carbon filter can only remove impurities which can bond to carbon. Hence, we need to use further stages pf filtration to remove other impurities.
RO (Reverse Osmosis) Filter
RO water purification is the most important stage of filtration in the entire purification process. The water coming out of the carbon filter passes through the RO filter membrane.
Reverse Osmosis filtration process works by forcing water through a fine membrane by applying pressure. As a result, the impurities inside the water are left behind as the water passes through the membrane. These membranes work by removing impurities based on their size. This means, that the filter doesn’t allow particles which have size larger than the water molecule. RO membranes work well in filtering most of the impurities including harmful chemicals, heavy metals, ions, bacteria, pesticides etc. Thus, it helps in reducing the TDS of water by 90-95%.
The water is separated into two parts. The impure water goes down the drain, and the pure water passes onto the next stage of purification.
UV (Ultraviolet) filtration
Ultraviolet water purification technology is highly effective in treating water containing residual germs like bacteria and viruses. Like, RO water purification, UV also uses electricity to function. However, this process is completely chemical free.
This purification technology depends on the usage of ultraviolet radiations to kill the dissolved bacteria and viruses. The UV filters come with a UV bulb fitted, which produces strong UV radiations. As the water passes through the membrane, ultraviolet rays penetrate through the harmful pathogens and destroy these illness causing micro-organisms.
UV purification, in itself is generally not sufficient in treating the input water to make it suitable for drinking. Reason being, that it is only useful in killing the dissolved bacteria and viruses. UV purification can not remove dissolved impurities like heavy metals, pesticides, VOCs etc. UV purification is often used in conjunction with the RO water purification technology.
UltraFiltration (UF) purification
UF water purification technology works similar to the Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology. However, in case of ultra-filtration, the pores of the membrane are much bigger as compared to the RO membrane. Also, ultra-filtration doesn’t require electricity for functioning.
Since, the pores of membrane used in ultra-filtration are larger than those used in RO filtration, it doesn’t block harmful impurities like pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals etc. Therefore, it is generally used in combination with RO filtration.
Most of the modern day water purifiers use RO, UV, and UF in combination to achieve the best results. We have discussed further below, how you could choose between these purification technologies based on your input water source.
Factors to consider while buying water purifier
Know your water input type – Choose between RO/ UV/ UF
Having discussed in detail all the water purifier technologies, by now you should have some clarity around how different purification technologies work. Following factors should be considered to choose the best water purifier suited to your home supply water:
- TDS test to check the concentration of dissolved impurities in the input water. This is bare minimum test which must be done.
- If there are industries nearby, chemical test should be done to find out if the source water contains heavy metal impurities. It is possible that the input water has TDS less than 300 PPM, but still contains significant concentration of lead, arsenic, mercury etc.
- Check if the water looks turbid
- Find out if the input water supply is known to contain dissolved virus and bacteria. If you are not sure, it is good to consider a water purifier which comes with UV filter.
Here is an indicative table you can use to figure out an ideal water purifier based on these different factors:
| TDS of water | Contains Turbidity | Bacteria and Virus | Ideal water purifier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below 300 PPM |  |  | UF water purifier |
| Below 300 PPM | | | UV+UF water purifier |
| Below 300 PPM | | | UV water purifier |
| Over 300 PPM | | | RO+TDS controller/ Mineralizer |
| Over 300 PPM | | | RO+UV water purifier+TDS controller/ Mineralizer |
| Over 300 PPM | | | RO+UV+UF with TDS controller/ Mineralizer |
If you are still confused, it is always safe to go for RO+UV+UF water purifier.
TDS controller vs Mineralizer
As we have discussed in detail earlier, water purifiers regulate TDS using either TDS controller or Mineralizer.
In case there are industries nearby and the input water has high concentration of metal impurities, it is generally safer to use a mineralizer instead of TDS regulator.
Storage capacity
Storage capacity of the water tank is a personal preference based on the size of the family and the power stability in your area. If you live in an area with frequent and long power cuts, then you might want to go with a purifier which has a large storage tank. This will make sure that you get continuous supply of pure water even when there is no power.
Budget
Budget is an important consideration while buying a water purifier. If you are on strict budget then do not blindly opt for RO+UV+UF+TDS. Going for all the filters might unnecessarily increase your budget, when your requirement might just be UV+UF.
You should do a TDS test on the input water, and then decide which purification technology is required. You might also want to go for a water purifier with TDS controller instead of Mineralizer if you have a lower budget in mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
Winding-up
This brings us to the end of reviews and buying guide for 8 best water purifiers in India (2020). We hope that our buying guide was useful in clearing off the majority of your doubts regarding the different water purification technologies and also helped you to know which one is apt for you.
If you still have any queries regarding which water purifier to buy, feel free to drop a comment in the section below and we will get back to you.