We purchased a Dyson Stowaway vacuum cleaner recently and I was pretty excited to see what it could do. I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that Dyson vacuum cleaners suck, in the best possible way!

I started out in our living area and attached the hard floor surface head and set to work vacuuming our tiles. I was immediately shocked by the fact that it has so much suction, you have to actually work to push it around even over the hard tiles – something that I’d never felt before in a vacuum cleaner. The next thing that I noticed was that the head had a very even suction, pulling in dirt right out to the edge of the head and even outside it by approximately 2cm.

After feeling just how much suction it had on the tiles, I couldn’t wait to see what it’d do with the turbine head on the carpet. After sorting the tiles out, turbine head attached and into the carpet we go – wow! It sucks against the carpet so hard that it leaves marks in it and we have a short pile carpet. You really need to work quite hard to push it around on the carpet, however the rotating bristles within the head and great suction was just tearing the dirt and kitty fur out.

I wasn’t sure if the 9Kg weight of the main unit was going to be a lot or a little, however in practice you don’t even notice it. I’m not sure if it is our particular Dyson or all of them, however they come with a particularly long nose on them – allowing you to cover a significant area without having to move the main unit. This greater range of movement may have been on the of contributing factors as to why I didn’t notice the weight of the vacuum cleaner.

While the Dyson isn’t going to win the silence award compared to some of the other bagged vacuum cleaners, it is still reasonably quiet. While Claire was vacuuming the carpet in our living room, I walked into the same room with Hugo asleep in my arms and he didn’t stir. I don’t think he’d stay asleep if you took the unit into a bedroom, however in a larger space the noise dissipated quickly.

They say first impressions last and so far, the Dyson vacuum cleaner certainly left a good impression. Only time will tell how well it is built and wears, however after seeing a video of James Dyson literally dropping and throwing around various Dyson vacuums to prove a point – I don’t expect we’ll have any problems on that front.