The best vacuum is the one you’ll actually use. Though cordless stick vacuums aren’t as thorough in cleaning as their plug-in counterparts, their light weight and maneuverability make up the difference — in theory, at least.
In practice, even a stellar cordless stick vacuum can bug you as much as any monster vacuum, mostly because the entire category has some drawbacks. Maybe it goes dead right when you need it, or maybe it hogs space in your closet, or maybe you feel like you’ve pitched nine innings after using it. Even though I’m impressed with the easy handling and beefy suction of the Dyson V12 Detect Slim, our current cordless stick vacuum pick, I still feel a blister coming on when I use it long enough.
Dyson’s newest stick vacuum, the streamlined PencilVac Fluffycones, is expressly built to eliminate those familiar annoyances. The company is famous for its muscly cordless stick vacuums, like the V12 Detect Slim, but the PencilVac represents a radical departure. It has a lightweight profile and weighs about the same as a hand vacuum, offering a similar grab-and-go cleaning focus, though it’s designed for hard floors and doesn’t work on rugs.
I spent a month testing the PencilVac against my V12 Detect Slim to see whether the newcomer was indeed easier to use and how well it handled the rigors of regularly cleaning a modest-size apartment (home to two humans and one dog). Pencils down — here’s what I found.
Light and agile, this model glides across hard floors and ably cleans in tight corners and under furniture. But it’s expensive for a vacuum that doesn’t work on carpets, and it needs to be charged on its stand.
Originally published on Source.
