The heater types, and what actually separates them

Start by discarding the efficiency question

Type comparisons in this category almost always open with an efficiency claim, and almost all of them are wrong. Resistive electric heating has no combustion, no flue and nowhere for the energy to go except into the room. A watt is a watt. 1,500 W of ceramic, 1,500 W of infrared quartz and 1,500 W of oil-filled radiator all put 1,500 joules per second into your room and all cost the same per hour to run.

Once you accept that, the comparison gets much more interesting, because what is left is genuinely different in ways you will feel.

How the heat gets to you

Convection heats the air, and the air heats you. Ceramic and fan-forced heaters do this actively by blowing air across a hot element; oil-filled radiators and micathermic panels do it passively, by warming the air that touches them. Convection warms a whole room fairly evenly and takes time to do it.

Radiant heat skips the air entirely. Infrared quartz elements emit in the infrared band and warm surfaces and bodies directly, the way sunlight through a window warms you on a cold day without warming the room. It is close to instant and it is directional: you feel it where it points, and you stop feeling it when you move.

That distinction decides more purchases than any spec sheet. If you want to sit in one chair and be warm in ninety seconds, radiant is the answer. If you want to walk into a bedroom at 3 a.m. and not feel cold anywhere in it, convection is. The full comparison is here.

The four types, in one paragraph each

Ceramic (PTC). A ceramic element and a fan. Fast, cheap, ubiquitous, and the type most likely to come with a digital thermostat at a reasonable price. The trade is fan noise and blown air, which people with dust sensitivities notice. Full explainer.

Infrared quartz. A quartz tube emitting radiant heat, usually with a fan to spread some of it. Instant warmth on whatever it points at, and the type that suits large or drafty spaces best because it is not trying to raise the temperature of a large volume of air. Full explainer.

Oil-filled radiator. An element inside a sealed reservoir of diathermic oil, with no fan at all. Silent, steady, and it keeps radiating after the thermostat cuts out, which makes the room temperature swing less. Slow to start and physically heavy. Full comparison.

Micathermic. A mica-sheathed panel that radiates and convects at once with no fan and about a fifth of the bulk of an oil-filled unit. Silent like a radiator, fast like a ceramic, and hot to the touch like neither should be near a toddler. Full explainer.

What none of them can do

No type escapes the 1,500 W plug-in ceiling, so no type covers more than about 150 sq ft at standard assumptions — see room sizing. And no type is safe to crowd: the 3-foot clearance rule applies to a cool-touch ceramic tower exactly as it applies to a bare quartz element, because the failure mode is what is near the heater, not what the heater is made of.