Designed chiefly for commercial use, it comes with one brush head which is far bigger and heavier than anything I’d seen on any of the other vacuums. Emptying the mop head is a bit of a faffy, you have to empty the waste extraction tray which holds both debris and dirty water. I’ve emptied it upwards of 10 times now and got dirty water over my hands each time. If that’s my only complaint (well, that and maybe the price) then I’d mark it as a success for Dyson. Though only 0.5kg heavier than the V15, that weight is all in the top which makes it cumbersome as a handheld – unfortunate, given the upgrade Dyson has made on fitting the handheld inside the regular vacuum.
Plus, along with being one of our favorite Shark vacuums, the multipurpose Shark Vacmop is one of our favorite inexpensive vacuum cleaners, too. While one pad lasted about three days for us, depending on how much we were cleaning, we would love it if this pick used reusable pads. Stocking up on disposable pads is a must, and also very easy to forget about, in our experience. Plus additional pad packs only come with 10 pads, so it’s almost worth adding multiple to your cart at a time. It feels like three vacuums in one—but even if you’re not interested in the different modes, it excels in the upright setting, too.
We found the Dyson V15s Detect Submarine wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner to be heavy, awkward, and, at nearly $1,000, ridiculously pricey. Like the V15 Detect—its much lighter, vacuum-only cousin—this model has a trigger instead of a button. Its mopping performance pales in comparison to an old-fashioned mop; it’s also leaky, and its five separate parts need to be painstakingly disassembled to be cleaned.
For the most part, battery performance and run time have improved over the years and many now come with attachments to tackle more cleaning tasks. This well-balanced handheld vacuum weighs slightly over 2 pounds, making it comfortable for longer cleaning jobs. However, the run time was among the shortest of the models we tested (12 minutes), and you can’t tell when the battery is low since there’s no charge indicator light. The large, square cleaner head has a brush roll that effectively lifts and removes small and large debris, passing all of our cleaning tests with flying colors. From whole Cheerios to fine flour, the vacuum cleaned up the particles quickly and worked well with pet hair.
But since the head measures just 20.7cm, it can tackle most small spaces in stick mode, which is a lot less effort than handheld mode. We would have given it a higher score if the dust tank was slightly larger. We were also impressed that it has an auto mode, which uses sensors to adjust the suction power to the amount of dust and saves battery power. We’re often tempted to whack the suction up to the highest setting, just to be sure we’re getting all the dust up, so, it was handy to have this little helper so we could operate the vacuum for longer. This is a great cleaner if you have a larger home and like to get all rooms done in one go.
At 8 pounds, the vacuum is heavier than others on the list and the battery is bulky. But it’s nice that it stands upright on its own when the power unit is near the bottom. As you turn it, fine dust is knocked from the filter into the cup for better cleaning and emptying. Each mode and surface has a different battery life, with the Dyson website shark stick vacuum listing run times as low as five minutes and as high as an hour, but averaging around 20–30 minutes (which is a bit low). Run TimeTo test battery life, we run cordless vacs on high and then again on low until the battery is depleted, then we note the times. If the vacuum has a medium setting (not every vacuum does), we test that too.