As Subhojit has pointed out, there are various good brands out there.

For a room of size 10 X 12 ft - a 1 Ton Unit should be mostly suffice.

Here are the other factors you need to consider:

Wall Unit or Split Unit:

Wall Units are cheaper than Split Units, but more noisy. They all require some modifications to your windows (for mounting). Splits Units can be easily installed comparatively.

Energy Efficieny (Star) Rating:

Other than the brands, the pricing is affected by the 'Energy Efficieny Rating' (Also referred to as the 'Star' Rating). Newer 4/5 Star Rated Models are more expensive than older 1/2 Star Models. The sales person will definitely convince you to buy the 4/5 Star Expensive Models..and this is usually a good idea if your A/C is running for many hours everyday (as in an office).

But for occasional home-use, the economics of saving in electricity costs should be evaluated vis a vis the extra few thousand Rs cost!

Hope this helps, Amit

Do you want a split AC or a window AC? 10*12 room ideally should get covered with a 1 tonne AC. We recently purchased a Voltas AC. Have used it for 15 days only, so far pretty satisfactory!

General guidelines while purchasing: 1. Make sure you check the start rating of the particular model. 2. Each company has various models with different star ratings. 3. Not all dealers stock all the models of a certain company, so you may want to check with at least 2-3 dealers.

For Voltas, we made the purchase from GV Puntambekar, Kelkar Road (next to kesri wada)

A 1-ton AC would be good enough for your room size. I have had a great experience with Carrier A/C's in terms of quality, service etc. Hence would recommend. I have used Carrier A/C's for 8+ years now. In fact, I would go for Carrier again due to the good experience I have had with them.

On the high end side you have AC's like Daikin, Hitachi etc. which are quite expensive. Mid-range would be Carrier, LG, Samsung etc.

And on the low side (price wise) would be Godrej, Voltas etc. - the Indian manufacturers.

For cost and reliability, I would suggest that 1 ton Voltas is the way to go. Their service is quite prompt too (don't need service for the machine - just regular cleaning). I would recommend a split AC for noise reduction.