Intex Quick45 Fill Electric Pump

After reading the hilarious review by 4Jax above, I was ready to buy it just for the humor. After also checking negative reviews about the twist nozzle and the noise I decided to buy it. Here's why: 1. Great price, high capacity. It fills inflatables more than TWICE as fast as most other air pumps that are only slightly cheaper (38 cfm vs 14 to 21 cfm). I'm impatient and I'd rather be playing than blowing up my inflatables. By the way don't be fooled by "high pressure" ones that claim 460 lpm (liters per minute). 100 liters is 3.5 cubic feet. That works out to 16 cfm, less than HALF what this pump does. 2. It has a hose! Others in this price range do not. Even if the twist connector doesn't work and I can't use the hose, it still works great without the hose and IT BLOWS TWICE AS MUCH AIR as competitors. The hose is a bonus. 3. If it's loud, so what? I'm unlikely to run it near sleeping babies. 4. It runs on real wall-plug 110V electricity, the kind that men use, not a wimpy 12V car adapter, or ridiculous rechargeable batteries. Yes, I tried a 12V battery-powered one before I bought this and I can't think of a better exercise in frustration than using one of those little monstrosities that only hold enough charge to blow up a small inflatable or two if you're lucky. When it runs out of charge, you need a CAR to run it off the 12V adapter because the sadist who invented it thought that the wall-plug adapter that goes with it should only be used to charge the battery, not actually run the pump. So rather than inflating it from the comfort of my living room, I have to haul it out to the garage and power it with the 12V adapter with a cord so short it had to have been designed by the same afore-mentioned sadist. Brilliant. If you need to power multiple toys and recharge multiple things from your car (laptops, tablets, video game consoles, etc.) on a long road trip, you should have a proper 110V inverter and an inexpensive multi-plug adapter and extension cord. You can buy a decent 150 watt inverter for around $20. I can haul a bunch of teenagers and recharge all their mobile devices at the same time. Specialized 12V appliances for cars are for people who enjoy pain. Needless to say, the Intex AC Electric pump is run from a house outlet...or a car outlet if you pony up $20 or so to buy a highly useful power inverter. Sorry for the rant about battery-powered, 12V car appliances, but I hope it will save some poor soul a lot of future frustration. Bottom line: I figured even if a couple things didn't work as nicely as I would hope, it was still more than worth the price, and I bought it. Guess what? When it arrived--promptly--it worked flawlessly. I frightened a couple small children (my own) with the prodigious air flow as they stood 10 feet away from me. They fled in panic at the wind and the noise. The noise isn't nearly as bothersome as some people claimed, but my toddler didn't care for it. I immediately tried the twist-lock hose to see if it was as problematic as some people claimed. It worked great. I made sure to line up the notches with the marks on the nozzle so I wouldn't accidentally strip the plastic notches. It is plastic after all, and torquing it heavily will surely break it, which by the way, raises the point of "mechanic's feel" described by Robert Pirsig in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (chapter 26). A good mechanic can tell by feel when he (or she) is torquing a bolt or joint too tightly. Different materials respond differently. Steel and iron can take a lot of abuse. Aluminum and lead, not so much. Plastic, very little. When you're trying to fit parts together or screw or bolt something and it resists your efforts, stop, take a closer look at the parts and see what may be causing the problem then try it again, gently. Breaking things is no fun. I've inflated several things with the Intex Quick-Fill AC Electric Air Pump now and have been delighted with how quickly it fills. I can't verify that it puts out 38.9 cubic feet per minute of air, but it fills much faster than any other pumps I have tried, short of an expensive air compressor. I haven't had any problems with the hose, being careful and gentle when I attach it. The hose is incredibly convenient. I was worried about burning out the motor when I filled a large 6-foot-tall habanero sauce display inflatable with a maddeningly small valve, but it worked great. The motor got a little warm--as it should--after running constantly for several minutes, but it did the job without any fuss. If I need to take it on the road to inflate a boat for rafting, I have a power inverter in my car--as everyone should. Excellent product for the price.