Have a Austin Jr for years, great but not cheap. Recently bought a Levoit Vital 200S-P for another part of the house, very good right out of the box...very happy with the purchase.
You can't really compare the two. The Austin HealthMate Plus Jr. CADR isn't published, but it's believed to be about 120 CFM, lower than the Levoit 300. But it has at least 6.5 lbs of Activated Carbon, Potassium Iodide Impregnated Carbon and Zeolite. It's much more than a particle filter, it's "designed for the chemically sensitive (MCS), removing the toughest contaminants and broadest spectrum of VOCs" and is "also recommended for allergy and asthma sufferers sensitive to VOCs, or for those in high smoke, particle or gas contamination areas." As with any unit with sorbent media, you want to run it on low to maximize "dwell" time, so the CADR will be a tiny fraction of 120 CFM. The odor reduction is a function of the meaningful amounts of carbon. With the Levoit, even if you upgrade to the Levoit Core 300-P 4-Stage Smoke Remover Replacement Filters, you get a trivial amount of carbon in a mesh. The reduction in allergy symptoms would suggest that you are more allergic do things that are captured by the "Activated Carbon, Potassium Iodide Impregnated Carbon and Zeolite" rather than by the particulate/HEPA filter(s).
If you are looking to filter primarily VOCs I would look into the AustinAir Healthmate line. They come with 15 lbs of activated carbon filters. Most regular air purifiers don’t have that much carbon in them that you will have to replace the whole filter much more quickly to work against VOCs.
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