Hoover Upright Vacuum Cleaner - Breeze Evo

Product Information

The collection bin can hold 1.4L of dust and debris. That’s slightly less than the 1.8L of the Dyson Ball Animal but still beats the capacity of most cordless models, including the Shark ICZ300UKT cordless upright, which only holds 0.6 litres. What’s more, everyone's cleaning needs vary, and whether you’re dealing with carpets, hard floors, stairs, pet hair (or all of the above!), there’s a lot to consider when shopping for your next cleaning companion.

Another area where uprights have been modernising in recent years is weight. Where once lugging the vacuum cleaner up the stairs was a real struggle, modern upright vacuums are now much lighter and more manoeuvrable than they used to be.Upright vacuums are also freestanding, so if you want to pause your floor cleaning session, perhaps you need to answer the door, or the telephone rings, then you can leave the vacuum in the middle of the floor, without worrying about leaning it somewhere. However, as they're larger they are harder to store. Like uprights and cylinders, most come with attachments including crevice and upholstery tools. Many even have motorised brushes to lift pet hair effectively. We analyse every element of a vacuum, from how it lifts dust from different floor surfaces to how easy it is to use, as well as its overall design. But if you’re looking to invest in a new handheld, as well as battery life and dust capacity, you should also consider the weight. It may feel light at first, but it can get heavy and tiresome after a short while. The weight should be around 1-1.5kg on average.

Designed to go where other attachments simply can't, the extension wand provides the extra reach you need to banish cobwebs from high ceilings and inaccessible corners, retrieve food particles from behind appliances, and clean right to the corners and edges of stairs.However, in our other tests it performed exceptionally well, proving itself exemplary at carpet cleaning and gathering smaller particles from hard floor. Hoover could have been slightly more generous with the attachments, and more easily accessible controls would be high on my wishlist of improvements. However, it’s good value for money for what you get.

In general use I found the Hoover manoeuvrable and able to reach reasonably far under low furniture, and front-mounted LED lighting helps you see where problem areas lurk, even if they’re well shaded. The only complaint I have is the control buttons are down on the main unit, which left me having to reach down awkwardly to switch between carpet and hard floor modes and to turn the vacuum on or off. Using this feature, you can rewind the cord into the vacuum at the press of a button – brilliant if you’re fed up with winding the cord to tidy it away yourself. The AirLift is reasonably priced yet it defies the odds and still delivers exceptional features and cleaning performance. It has a lift-out cylinder that makes it more convenient to clean the stairs and behind the sofa; it has a HEPA filter, which is good news for allergy sufferers; and, most important of all, it has stellar cleaning performance. We rate each model on how simple it is to empty the dust canister, how loud it is during use, and how durable it is. In addition, for those with batteries, we assess how long they last between charges, while for corded models, we evaluate the length of the power cord. iRobot’s Roomba vacuums are iconic, so it’s hardly surprising its top-scoring models dominated our testing. This is the predecessor to the Combo J7+, meaning it shares many features, only without the added mop capabilities, so while it’s still a hefty investment, it’s slightly more affordable. Handheld

The floor head has anti-tangle tech, which stops the brush roller getting clogged up with long hair. During testing I found no hair tangles on the floor head, even after cleaning around the vanity stations of long-haired family members. Bagless models also tend to be messier as the dust can spill when you empty them, so if you or a family member suffer from asthma or allergies, a bagged design may be best. You will need to keep some empty bags in a cupboard though, so you don’t run out mid-clean. During testing, the vacuum made light work of collecting fine dust and larger debris, including cereal from carpets and hard floors. It also converts into a portable vacuum simply by lifting out the main body to ensure you can easily clean stairs, upholstery, and up-high. We also found it glided well on both short-pile carpet and hard floors. This is Miele's most powerful vacuum cleaner. It boasts some fine-tuned spec over it's predecessor - Miele HX1 Cat&Dog - with a Digital Efficiency Motor, longer battery runtime and being an overall lighter piece of kit, so it gets our vote for the best premium upright vacuum.