Sorry for such an utterly boring topic but would be interested in real-world experiences of the above. To be used in the car, on the stairs, picking up crumbs and my shedding hair. The GTech has a 20 minute run time and a reasonable weight plus 4 hours recharging.

No experience of this brand, others seem to have a short run time such as 8 minutes. Not prepared to pay £500 for premium brands for effectively a second vacuum cleaner and around £200 is my limit.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve got a little einhell 18v battery one, that i use and abuse at work, as well as clean the van and car with. It’s just now on it’s last legs after being abused for nearly 3 years.

For normal household use, i can see it lasting forever, plus you can use the batteries across the einhell range.

Might be a shout, and well under budget.

I have a dyson cordless which is great

Can be had for around £230 but I’m sure with some searching a cheaper dyson is available

One thing I learnt from my research, I went for the cheaper dyson cordless model which is lighter, easier and a joy to use

More expensive models have bigger batteries but the additional weight is supposed to mean less ease when in use

I gather the battery is not replaceable, and these do begin to not hold a charge after a while

However, 3 years of weekly use in a modest size home, as our sole vacuum cleaner, and it still works fine

Charging time is slow

My wife really likes the Shark Anti Hair Wrap Cordless Vacuum IZ202UK. It comes with one battery so it needs a recharge to do the whole house in one go. The battery is separate and can be charged on or off the machine. Various bits can be taken off to do the car and it folds neatly for storage

The Dyson plug-in jobbie has been hoofed-out

She paid under £200, there are bargains out there

They are a bit of a game changer (as far as vacuuming goes). You just grab it for any little mess before it gets worse. Little and often rather than a big clean. Seems much less effort and lower runtime isn’t an issue

I gather the battery is not replaceable, and these do begin to not hold a charge after a while

They are pretty easy to replace. Two screws and they slide out. You can buy genuine Dyson spares or gamble on an aftermarket. I’ve had two Dysons for free as they were dead, replaced the battery and they’ve been fine.

Avoid G Tech. We had one. Absolutely awful.

We got a Dyson handheld refurbished from Dyson.

https://www.dyson.co.uk/refurbished?ef_id=CjwKCAiAiP2tBhBXEiwACslfnon5mQhjE8RaPf1iq74s6SgU9jE9QRQpB3rUjX_xbwDU-AOzq3caARoC2aUQAvD_BwE:G:s&utm_id=sa_71700000092365354_58700007751040871&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cc_cross-category-range_always-on&utm_content=do_text_1x1_na&utm_term=dyson+refurbished&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAiP2tBhBXEiwACslfnon5mQhjE8RaPf1iq74s6SgU9jE9QRQpB3rUjX_xbwDU-AOzq3caARoC2aUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#shop-all

The saving seem a lot less than when we bought it.

It’s been good. My beloved Henry that my wife hates has been fully relegated to the garage and only gets used for DIY.

The Dyson constantly complains, gets clogged, runs out of battery, demands a new air filter and other irritations.

Brick dust makes it chuck it’s toys out the pram and it needs a blast with compressed air before it will work.

It lives on the wall in the kitchen and gets used constantly.

It’s trigger broke it was a 3h job to take it to bits, fix the trigger and put it back together.

The second time was just as faffy.

I want the simplicity of a Henry in hand held form.

I suspect that’s not available. If it broke id reluctantly buy another.

We’ve been using a Dyson v7 for several years, not as powerful as mains powered vacuum cleaner (who’d have thought it) but more then good enough for a regular sprint round the house. Battery has finally given up so replaced the battery bought also bought a manufacturer refurbished v11 direct from Dyson. Looks brand new to me and considerably more powerful than the v7. Both get used in the house and in the cars.

We’ve also got a robot vacuum cleaner which wanders about daily, brilliant, should have bought one years ago.

We had a Dyson cordless for years, we thought it was decent. It died and we replaced it with a Shark which is soooo much better. Battery lasts ages!

I’ve got a Vax; it’s great. One drawback is that it can’t charge while it’s hanging up – you have to slide the battery off and put it in the charger, then put it back on. Other than that, very good. Perhaps a bit larger than you are looking for though.

We’ve got that Vax one too. I’ve not used it but wife seems happy with it (yes I know!)

If you already have the batteries, and all you want is the absolute basics for picking up crumbs/hair etc off a fairly easy to vacuum floor (hard floor or short pile carpet) then the Makita one is often available for about £40. We have 5ah batteries for other tools, and it lasts a couple of weeks for basic quick tidy up duties.

The other vacuum is a Shark corded – you cant really beat a corded vac for main duties.

We’ve got a Halo from Capsule. Had it a couple of years and it’s good. Narrower than the mains vacuum but works well and the mains one doesn’t get used much anymore.

Home New Sale

We have a Vax blade, it’s the single most useless domestic appliance (if that’s the correct term?) I’ve had the misfortune to use.
If after hours of carefully cleaning out the machine, you get it to work properly and hook it back on the wall, you find yourself getting old faithful Henry out to clear out what then falls back out of it.
Utter shite thing, I’d have taken it back if it was my decision.

I want the simplicity of a Henry in hand held form.

Numatic have just launched a handheld Henry. Whether it’s any good is another question; think they’re about £250

“We have a Vax blade, it’s the single most useless domestic appliance (if that’s the correct term?) I’ve had the misfortune to use.
If after hours of carefully cleaning out the machine, you get it to work properly and hook it back on the wall, you find yourself getting old faithful Henry out to clear out what then falls back out of it.”

I agree, after years of trying to get ours to work after motor failures, button failures, the head constantly disconnecting, we went back to a DC01 that someone gave us. It’s the only thing we ahve at the moment but it does the job!

Baby shark do do do do, baby shark do do do do

We got a baby shark in a black Friday deal came with a charging base and second battery that charges in the base at the same time, as well as a few attachments. Can’t remember the cost, but highly rated.

Don’t be fooled by vacuums that just run longer. While the time the battery charge lasts is a consideration, if the vacuum isn’t as effective at collecting dust, crumbs, hair etc then you’ll need to vacuum for comparatively longer, hence potentially loosing any benefit.

In true STW style, I’ll fail to address the subject; the Karcher outlet store is worth a look – but not for handheld…https://www.karcheroutlet.co.uk

… are they footheld instead?

Shark.

Good kit, excellent after sales support.

https://sharkclean.co.uk/product/shark-premium-handheld-vacuum-wv270uk-zidWV270UK

Had years of service from our Dyson as our only vacumn cleaner, still going strong, but might benefit from a new battery soon.

Big fan of shark vacuums, so much so I have three! Got a spot on wet vac cleaner of theirs (which is brilliant) and corded vacuum that I use once weekly to do the whole house (dog owner) and then a small cordless jobby for exactly what you say, small spot jobs, but it also has a wand attachment so I could use it to do the whole house but the tank on it is quite small and the tank on my corded is full after a full hoover. Really impressed by the battery life from it and it has a turbo button for those stubborn jobs.

Im very happy with the shark for 180. We have a henry for heavy duty use but i wanted one to give a quick blast round and in fact I can do the whole house on a charge.

https://sharkclean.co.uk/product/shark-anti-hair-wrap-cordless-vacuum-single-battery-iz202uk-zidIZ202UK?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAq4KuBhA6EiwArMAw1EP2VV7z6oHNzSvoYv3UUUWi69JedS74P2EamDw4O6r62e2wJQSSIxoCPHsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Makita DCL180 18v <£30 perfect if you already have Makita power tools.

Buy some spare filter bags and pop the dirty ones in the washing machine.

Won’t do a whole house but perfect for a quick blast.

We’ve got a dyson v8 with an aftermarket battery. The runtime is significantly better with the flylinktech 5000mah than it was with the factory one. That said, we do have a ‘big hoover’ for the cleaner. I’ll just take myself over to the middle class thread now

… are they footheld instead?

Came here to say, “as opposed to what?” 😁

I gather the battery is not replaceable, and these do begin to not hold a charge after a while

We’ve had two Dyson V-something cordless vacuums, a V6 and a V8 I think? The battery life on both went pants in a couple of years, probably a side-effect of them being permanently on charge. “MAX” on my V8 gave about six seconds of runtime. Replacing both with “compatible” batteries from Amazon couldn’t have been easier, it’s two screws apiece.

The V6 we donated to my partner’s daughter. A few weeks later she was moaning that they couldn’t do the hoovering because it was broken. I said to bring it back for me to take a look at. I emptied it. Works fine again. 🙄

The V6 we donated to my partner’s daughter. A few weeks later she was moaning that they couldn’t do the hoovering because it was broken. I said to bring it back for me to take a look at. I emptied it. Works fine again.

As a parent, that scenario is entirely familiar. I have also found that charging the battery fixes “broken” stuff.

We have a Dyson v10. At some point I looked for something to replace it but couoldn’t see anything better. Other than a v11.

Just moved over from a Dyson that was like Triggers brush, to a Samsung handheld something or other. It’s truly a thing of genius, I wish we had one earlier. Ours was £250 ish but they do cheaper models, but I won’t get a Dyson on principle. My MIL has a Shark that she swears by but I don’t know which model.

Just bought a Shark after reading various threads here and it’s given me this link that should give you 10% off (and me 10% off a future purchase, though I hope I don’t need anything else!). They’ve got some bank holiday deals on a few things and you get 10% by signing up to the newsletter (don’t know if it works with the referral link). Anyway, in case it saves a few quid for someone, here you go:

Get 10% off at Shark or Ninja. Get 10% off when you shop at Shark or Ninja using my exclusive referral link. Limited time offer. https://i.soreto.com/shark/q/4y9DW1Zflg

The really good deals seem to have dried up but I got a Hoover H Free 500 last year and it’s been great, especially considering the price. Main complaint I have is that it’s all a wee bit delicate, for me a vacuum is a bash it around, drop it, hard use sort of an instrument and treating this one like that has meant a bunch of little cracks and some tape to make it work as it should. But that aside, it’s very good at actually vacuuming, and it was inexpensive. It’s pretty much a stick vacuum and handheld combined, and the tool attachments etc are really clever.

Like nickjb says it’s a gamechanger having an actual effective cordless, the convenience means you just grab it and use it, it’s one of those things where the extra fannying around of cables isn’t “an extra 2 minutes on the job”, it’s “just didn’t do it”, a bunch of the time. It’s not as good for a whole house vacuum sort of deal, but the flipside is I barely ever do that now, just quick cleanups keep on top of it- turns out the “vacuum the house” is just something I did because corded vacuums are annoying.

If you already have the batteries, and all you want is the absolute basics for picking up crumbs/hair etc off a fairly easy to vacuum floor (hard floor or short pile carpet) then the Makita one is often available for about £40.

I have one and I do use it around the shed etc but tbf it is quite rubbish. Which is fine, sometimes rubbish is all you need, and I like that it’s not good enough that I’m ever tempted to use it for anything except dirty jobs. But if I wanted an actual vacuum for vacuuming I’d definitely not get one

Didn’t get round to updating but ended up with a Shark Premium Handheld wv270uk which is very light with a 15 minute run time. For such a little thing it’s picked up with ease everything I’ve asked it to and so quick to empty. Definitely impressed.

We’ve got the Hitachi one that uses the drill batteries. Fine for 2 runaway bits of granola but generally poor.

The Shark one looks appealing but £100 is a lot for a little vacuum 🤔

I have a hoover h-free 500

… Cons..

Low run time compared to some

Smaller canister than some

Longer charge time than average

… Pros

Price

One of the most compact  on the market and you can detach the canister/motor but and reattach it so it’s half height for stowing away

One of the lightest ones on the market

Overall I like it.

I did have to buy a new canister (about £20) as it toppled over and cracked… So I very quickly learned to detach the top but so it’s in ‘storage mode’ as otherwise it’s a bit top heavy and can be toppled over easily when it’s free standing.

Ex Dyson owner here.  Lasted nearly 8 years (with 1 replacement battery in that time).  Avoiding brand had a look at various, intending to buy a Miele (our Miele cylinder is excellent).

Ended up with a Samsung – well reviewed, seem to be able to get spares, 5 year warranty.  the 75 seemed the best balance of power/price and they were heavily discounted direct. They seem an even better price now.  Originally 450, down to 270, 50 cash back after purchase (and £10 if you ‘recycle’ your existing which means they take your old vac away)

It’s really solidly made, quiet and works well.

(I wonder why they’re discounting so heavily? new model on the way? RRP on all these cordless vacs seems ludicrous but Dyson seemed to redefine the price point upwards.  The top of the range Samsung (which has some emptying system tank thing is NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS) https://www.samsung.com/uk/vacuum-cleaners/stick/bespoke-jet-plus-210w-all-in-one-clean-station-mid-blue-vs20b95973b-eu/

I’d left the link off = even cheaper at Marks. £200 (plus 50 cash back)

https://markselectrical.co.uk/vs20b75acr5%2feu_samsung-cordless-stick-vacuum-cleaner-max-200w-suction-power-with-60-min-run-time?referrer=GoogleShopping&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_-GxBhC1ARIsADGgDjtaCkewPTQ02A3p0m-M5-CU9fuX_gONIMyxEGQWdaWieNKJ15RDB8saAheoEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

The problem with these is that cheap ones really are shit. We had a Vax one that someone else paid £100 or so for and whilst it worked it was pretty rubbish. Then we got a Samsung 70 for a little over £200 and it’s great. On mega turbo max mode it’s not far off as powerful as a mains one but it only lasts 5 mins. 40 mins or something like that on normal which is actually fine. As above, a game changer especially if your house is all stairs like ours.

I’ve just ordered one of these Henry stick vacuums, £100 off at Amazon at the moment

https://amzn.eu/d/bHNKFZD

mattyfez
Full Member

I did have to buy a new canister (about £20) as it toppled over and cracked… So I very quickly learned to detach the top but so it’s in ‘storage mode’ as otherwise it’s a bit top heavy and can be toppled over easily when it’s free standing.

I got hoovered into some weird economics with the Hfree 500, I wanted one particular accessory that was expensive, then i found you could get the entire vacuum with that tool for not drastically more. So I bought a second one, kept the battery (handy) and the canister (cos they’re made of that special shattery plastic) and sold all the rest in bits for about twice what I’d paid for the entire vacuum. There’s a whole massive cottage industry out there for parting out small domestic stuff but these seem like a really extreme case

I love the retracty brush and the stacky mode though

I got hoovered into some weird economics with the Hfree 500, I wanted one particular accessory that was expensive, then i found you could get the entire vacuum with that tool for not drastically more. So I bought a second one, kept the battery (handy) and the canister (cos they’re made of that special shattery plastic) and sold all the rest in bits for about twice what I’d paid for the entire vacuum. There’s a whole massive cottage industry out there for parting out small domestic stuff but these seem like a really extreme case

I love the retracty brush and the stacky mode though

Nice! I’ll bear that in mind 😀