Like most things, you get what you pay for. I've used the small compressors before, but have recently installed a belt driven compressor (in my Jeep) that runs off of my engine. Oh man is that thing fast! The smaller compressors will be slower, and probably will have a short duty cycle, however, they won't cost much, or take up much space. For the uses stated above, I think a smaller compressor would do quite nicely. Your tires probably aren't huge, so having a slow compressor won't be quite as annoying as it is in an offroad rig with over sized tires that would take forever to inflate on a slower compressor. A small compressor won't be able to run air tools, re-seat a tire bead, inflate a big tire really fast, etc, but you probably won't have to worry about any of that stuff in a regular vehicle

My $0.02,
Rio