Brooms Are A Passé

Let's face facts. Most vacuum cleaners are like exercise cycles, bought with the best of intentions but soon to be found gathering dust in a corner of the house! With the V8 Absolute+ from tech pioneer Dyson, that’s likely not to be the case.

Well, just take a look at it — the V8 series looks more like a prop from a sci-fi movie than something that would be hidden away with the broomsticks and dustpans! This is a home appliance that you wouldn't mind showing off, as it sits docked to its wall-mounted charging station — it is at once attention-grabbing and iconic, the sort of design you cannot mistake for anything else.

With the assortment of attachments in the retail package, the V8 Absolute+ delights in its ability to quickly transform from full-stick to handheld mode, so you can go from cleaning upholstery or a hard flooring to vacuuming the car in a jiffy. The weight distribution of the heavy components — the battery, motor and the cyclione suction engines — are all around the hand grip, making the V8 Absolute+ easy to maneuver around tough-to-reach spots, and since it is cordless, there is none of that dragging the power cord along as you go about cleaning the house. There is enough juice to last a full 40 minutes on a full charge, but switching to Max suction mode (or one of the power-hungry cleaning attachments) will drop that figure down to 7-10 minutes.

In use, the V8 Absolute+ delivers, and how! The Dyson Digital Motor, spinning at an insane 110,000rpm, is ably mated to the radial cyclones atop the dust bin to provide the suction power needed to tackle all manners of dust. Some cleaning heads have their own motors to agitate the dust particles, while others articulate to allow you to reach those spots where brooms seldom dare…or easily cover large areas around you simply by flicking your wrists! The way the Dyson digs out hidden dirt, strands of thread and hair from otherwise clean looking cushions and mattresses, and then deposits it into the bin (no dust bags, mind you) will astound you at first. A HEPA filter at the rear of the cleaner traps particles as small as 0.3-microns suspended in the air as well so, in theory at least, a good cleaning session will leave the air in your room cleaner than before when you started vacuuming.

The only downside I felt was that the trigger-action needed a lock for when you are cleaning a large area – the constant need to keep the trigger pressed can get tiring after a while. That, and the fact that this is solely for dry vacuuming.

While all this tech, most of which is patented by Dyson, is central to the experience, what is undeniable is that you have to pay a pretty penny for owning a Dyson vacuum. With the way it is installed — a Dyson technician comes over for a thorough run-down of the tech, how each of the attachments function and how to set up the docking station — right to the way it is built, you get a distinct feeling the money has been spent well. Well, who would have thought a vacuum cleaner could get a jaded techie like me all eager to go on a cleaning spree!