Product Review: Dyson Cyclone V10 Cordless Vacuum

Overall Opinion: as a long term test the Dyson Cyclone V10 cordless handheld vacuum gives rise to conflicted feelings. It’s tricky to review. It is a lot of money to pay for a cordless vacuum (we have acquaintances who are happy with a Shark costing nearly half the amount) and you get the feeling that you’re ‘paying for the name’. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when that name is ‘Dyson’ because it brings with it a fantastic product … but read our long term review below to see why we can only stretch to giving the Dyson Cyclone V10 cordless vacuum a FOUR STAR rating.

Our Floor Types: cut pile carpets, carpet tiles, laminate flooring and ceramic floor tiles.

Our Pet Types: surprisingly fluffy short hair cats who shed 24/7/365

Suction: the big question for any long term test of a rechargeable battery powered vacuum … what’s the suction like after a year? … or 15 months in this case. Excellent! There has been no noticeable reduction in power and it continues to remove huge amounts of cat hair from carpets with aplomb. One of the reasons for this must be the filter which is washable and re-usable; it’s a clever part that you unscrew, wash the whole thing, dry, and then screw back on.

Battery Life: we haven’t noticed a reduction in rechargeable battery life (although there must be by now if only slight) but battery life is a general point of irritation even out of the box. There are three speed settings which give us around 55 minutes battery life on ‘low’, 20 minutes battery life on ‘medium’ and just 8 minutes battery life on ‘high’. Everybody will use their Dyson V10 Cyclone differently of course but we tend to use it on ‘high’ for the best results removing pet hair from carpets. You get amazing results … but after 8 minutes your battery is dead. In some respects you might say this is the perfect excuse to stop housework for the day … but it can be frustrating too. So the power and results come at a price, but if you only need ‘medium’ or ‘low’ power for most of your handheld cordless vacuuming then you’ll probably be content with the V10’s battery life.

Durability: Yikes! Not as durable as we would like a £500 ($665) vacuum to be! Mercifully our Dyson Cyclone cordless came with a 2 year guarantee.

For such a critical element to the functionality of the Dyson V10 the lip is surprisingly thin so it’s not surprising that it has broken after 12 months of ‘impact’ every time the hopper is slid open. Hooray for our 2 year warranty! We phoned the Dyson Helpline and after spending 20 minutes on hold we finally spoke to somebody. After being disappointed with the telephone wait time we were delighted with the way that the issue was dealt with so quickly and politely. A replacement part arrived 48 hours later and would have cost us around £30 ($37) if we had been outside the warranty. UNFORTUNATELY it was the wrong part so we phoned again. Yet another 20 minute wait on the Dyson Helpline but yet again another super-friendly and super-efficient service that despatched a whole new body for the Dyson V10 (worth around £80/$99) and they threw in a new filter too (worth around £20/$25) as an apology for their first error.

Following the defect (and the potential costs) we would seriously consider purchasing an extended warranty for our next Dyson handheld cordless. It would be reassuring to know that defects were covered for at least 5 years. (A quick look on the UK’s Domestic & General website reveals they would provide extra cover for £3.00 per month … not sure what’s included and excluded but this is definitely worth some consideration and inspection of the small-print).

That’s probably an unfair comparison for this review but you get the idea. Unfortunately the hole we created seemed to interfere with the suction (so it was more than cosmetic); we’ve consequently repaired the hole with some duck tape to create an air-tight seal and it’s up and running again at 100% power.

(Just as an aside the body has an odd centre of gravity so when it’s put down on its battery pack it is quite unstable and easily tips over. You have been warned).

Tools: the selection of tools that come with this handheld vacuum are adequate for general day-to-day purposes. The addition of a ‘soft’ beater along with the bristle beater is welcome for more delicate surfaces. The ‘click-on press-off’ fittings are good and very convenient although a couple of our attachments have very stiff fixings which (even after 15 months) can make it very difficult to detach the part. Maybe – when all the other fixings are loose and worn – we’ll be glad of these super-tight parts but until then we’ll keep wrestling them off. The set would definitely benefit from a better range of brush attachments (the one included has limited uses) and maybe the addition of a ‘precision attachment’ to allow extraction from very hard to reach areas e.g. the dust and hair currently clogging up the rear components of your fridge freezer. Yes. You should deal with that.

Dust Hopper Capacity: bit annoying. It’s quite small so it fills up very quickly if you’re extracting pet hair from your carpets at max power. It has a ‘fill line’ that must never be exceeded although it’s very easy to not notice that you’ve overfilled it (even with the clear plastic hopper). The dust hopper is easy to empty but you’ll have read about our problem with the sliding mechanism above.

Ease of Use: it’s easy to use and dare we say it ‘fun’ to use as well (as far as any home cleaning appliance can be!). Just the convenience of quickly grabbing the V10 and strolling around the house with oodles of suction power at your finger tips has yet to get boring. The experience is enhanced by it’s slight retro ray-gun appearance and the weird science-fiction sound effects it makes when you accidentally catch the switch and briefly activate it.

Open for Debate:

Is there something weird about a home appliance manufacturer describing the colour of a vacuum as ‘iron’? … because then the word ‘iron’ appears in the description and your brain has to keep filtering out the idea that it’s a vacuum and not an actual iron.

So that’s our long term test review of the Dyson Cyclone V10 cordless vacuum. Please share your own thoughts and experiences below or ask us a question. We’ll be updating this review as time goes on so keep checking back for our verdict on the pros and cons of this expensive but powerful home appliance.