Sawyer Mini versus LifeStraw

LifeStraw: http://www.buylifestraw.com/products/lifestraw-personal

Sawyer Mini: http://sawyer.com/products/sawyer-mini-filter/

The main difference between the two is the pore size for filtering.

The Lifestraw has larger pores vs. the Sawyer.

The Mini: The MINI removes 99.99999% of all bacteria, such as salmonella, cholera and E.coli; removes 99.9999% of all protozoa, such as giardia and cryptosporidium

The Lifestraw: 99.9999% bacteria & 99.9% Giardia

Form factor would be a separate issue to address, but on the technology side, they are significantly different.

One big issue is that if you were to use the LifeStraw…how would you fill up your cooking pot with clean water?

Suck water through the straw and spit it out into your cooking pot?

This assumes that you don't want to burn extra fuel to boil your cooking water to clean it.

The Mini allows for inline usage, gravity filtering in camp, as well as using it like the life straw.

More flexibility in usage would be the reason why the Mini would be the better options, beyond the safely of filtering the water more effectively with smaller pore sizes.

Plus, the Mini is field cleanable….I did not see anything on the LifeStraw website for field cleaning.

Think the LifeStraw was designed from the beginning to be a disposable product to aid/save people in 3rd world countries from waterborne diseases and created a commercial product as an outgrowth of that noble endeavor.

The Mini was designed with the backpacker, camper, recreational person in mind.

Tony

Nailed it. There's no argument for the LifeStraw. The Sawyer Mini can do everything the LifeStraw can do, plus it works as an inline filter for bladders, a squeezable filter to fill bottles, or a directly attached filter on a regular waterbottle. The LifeStraw is only ever going to be a straw.

I deep-sixed my LifeStraw after the first 2 hikes with it. It became so hard to suck water through that I cannot imagine having to rely on it for anything. And as was mentioned, it was ever only a straw with no other uses.

I read awhile back a ton of information on the Lifestraw and it was tested in a bunch of places in African and failed at what its designed for. Here is the only article I could dig up

http://mcedccu.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/lifestraw-case-studies-revealing-challenges-in-engineering-for-development-guest-post/comment-page-1/

I read some peer reviewed studies that made me never want to purchase one. I have a sawyer mini and its fantastic!

Thanks for info and I'll stick with the mini.

> it was tested in a bunch of places in African and failed at what its designed for.
I think that is a completely misleading summary of the article.

What they found was that the users didn't like using the device, and didn't. That does not mean it didn't work, just that it was inconvenient to use it. Very different thing.

I would not argue about ease of use – that's a personal thing.

Cheers

Roger I said I couldn't find the study that showed it failed to do what it was designed to do and this was all I could find from my previous reading. I don't remember how or where I found the study but it was in a peer reviewed journal. At no point did I say the article linked indicated this.