[Review] Dyson Cyclone V10 – Portable powerhouse performer

If you are like most people, you’ll likely have experienced the travails of working with traditional corded vacuum cleaners. If not for anything else, vacuuming the house is a royal pain in the posterior. You’re lugging around a huge and heavy contraption underfoot like an anthropomorphised plastic elephant on rollers to vacuum your home and you’re essentially limited by how far your cable extends from your plug point.

Want to use your vacuum to clean somewhere odd like the attic, a shelf or anything beyond waist height? Good luck unless you have arms like Terry Crews to hold your vacuum up. And perish the thought of wandering beyond the confines of your plug point and cable. Portable dust busters? Nice try, but most aren’t usually powerful enough beyond managing the odd docile dust bunny or two. Enter the Cyclone V10 cord-free vacuum.

Essentially, the Dyson Cyclone V10 is a cord-free vacuum cleaner that addresses all the traditional pain points of a vacuum cleaner and ramps everything up to 11. Intended as the successor to last year’s V8, the V10 has more suction power than a conventional wired vacuum while also being more portable to boot on account of a number of features unique unto Dyson kit that include their potent digital motor and a bagless dust container that makes disposal an absolute doddle.

In Malaysia, the V10 is available in three different configurations – the Dyson Cyclone V10 Fluffy, the Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute and the Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute+. All of them feature the same base V10 cord-free vacuum but differ primarily in the tool attachments that come with it as well as price  with the Absolute+ the most complete assortment with 8 tool attachments for the V10 for RM3,399 as well as a slightly bigger bin and a tool bag to keep all the attachment heads in one place.

Our test unit, the V10 Absolute is a middle ground of sorts with 6 tool head attachments that cover the most common cleaning scenarios in the home for RM400 less at RM2,999. The entry-level V10 Fluffy variant has the least number of attachments and lacks the Direct Drive Cleaner head that the other packages have for RM 2,699.

What’s in the Box for the Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute

Our test unit of the Cyclone V10 Absolute comes in a sturdy cardboard box with each component neatly slotted and protectively wrapped in additional cardboard and plastic. The way it’s packaged ensures the contents are safe against mishandling during shipment but putting them all back together again as you saw it in the box is a bit of a challenge.

As the middle ground between the three available packages for the V10, the V10 Absolute package comes with six attachments as well as a wall-mounted dock which can hold two attachments. The provided tool attachments are intended for specific scenarios and areas of the house with some integrating an additional motor that draws power off the main battery of the V10 for enhanced effectiveness.

The wedge-shaped soft dusting brush is designed to work on delicate surfaces and fabrics. The mini motorised tool has its own built-in motor, looks a bit like the head of a hammer and is designed to deal with hair and dirt in tight spaces. It is also rather handy for use on car seats too. The Direct Drive floorhead combines carbon and nylon bristles to handle all manner of dirt and odd sized bits of debris around hard floors and carpets alike in the house. It’s motorised too and has a ball-shaped roller that makes maneuvering it about on the floor a smooth affair
The Soft Roller Cleaner head is the third motorised attachment bundled with the V10 and integrates a soft roller brush head that is ideal for cleaning on hard floors and does so with deft aplomb. The crevice tool, as you’d likely surmise, is designed for cleaning up tight gaps like the crevices between walls and between wooden floorboards. The combination tool is designed to suck up crud across differently textured surfaces like tiles, wood and the like.

Dyson Cyclone V10 design

The entirety of the Cyclone V10 is built around Dyson’s new digital V10 motor – hence its name – that spins at an impressive 125,000rpm when you goose it at full tilt while being 20% lighter and also offering 20% more power to boot than what was mounted in the older V8.

The V10 is also the first Dyson vacuum to date to offer three different power settings depending on your needs with a Max mode that allows the V10 to operate at its full potential but at a reduced operation time measured in minutes, a middle two-bar setting that reduces suction slightly while the lowest one-bar setting gives you modest suction but close to an hour of run time.

The design of the Cyclone V10 has also been revamped for enhanced air-flow and by extension, better suction performance. Rather than the older V8’s underslung waste bin and motor, the Cyclone V10 has the bin and motor aligned linearly to each other to offer 40% better performance than its predecessor the V8 while the filter has been enlarged and repositioned to the rear of the V10 for more efficiency.

To wit, Dyson has rated the improved filter to be able to capture particulate matter as small as 0.3 microns which is about 99.97% of most allergens – pollen, dirt and whatnot floating about. Access to the filter is easy – it twists off to grant access and once it gets grotty after extended use all you need to do is to wash it.

The Dyson Cyclone V10 itself weighs about 1.65kg bereft of any attachments and is designed with a pistol shaped-grip, a thumb rest and a slider just ahead of the trigger assembly that helps you to empty the bin in one sliding motion.

Depending on the reach and length of where you’re intending to clean, you can optionally pop any of the cleaning tool heads straight into the V10 while ditching the brass extension tube to make it easier to maneuver around. What is ingenious here is that the extension tube not only extends your reach but also acts as a pass-through for any powered tool attachments that you add to it. Bar the odd sliding bin opening assembly, the rest of the tool attachments of the V10 are effortlessly easy to use and remove.

Placed just underneath the trigger is the non-removable Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminium (NCA) battery rated at 25.2V and 525 Watts of power. Unfortunately, you can’t hot swap or remove the battery so once you’ve drained it dry from usage. You’ll have to pop it back into its charger for a juicing. Charging it is via a wall-mountable charging dock that lets you snap the Cyclone V10 in while also acting as a handy means to store it rather than having it lay about the floor.

Once you’ve added the extension tube and a motorised tool attachment at the end, the V10 weighs about 2.5kg and still proved exceptionally wieldable one-handed though you’ll possibly need a second hand to support if you’re using it on more challenging areas like cobwebbed ceilings.

In terms of design, the Cyclone V10 hits the proverbial nail on the head as it is made not only to be practical but ergonomic and good looking to boot with an appearance resembling a Flash Gordon-esque ray gun; no surprise seeing its pistol-shaped design and as far as busting nasty dust bunnies are concerned, this would likely be the weapon of choice.

Dyson V10 Cyclone performance

Over the course of several weeks, we put the Dyson V10 to the test over a variety of cleaning scenarios that are usually the province of a traditional corded vacuum and several more than were not. We took it for several spins around hardwood floors and carpets, over marble tiled floors, over and around a living room laden with a veritable colony of dust bunnies, a dusty attic and even outdoors on a jaunt  to clean up the interior of a car. The Dyson V10 tackled it all with flying colours.

Using it is as intuitive as it gets. Attach the tools you need or the extension tube if you need extra reach, pull the trigger and away you go. There’s initially a bit of confusion as to what is the right attachment to use for which surfacez bar the more obvious ones like the crevice tool but it’s something you can easily sort out after a few tries.

With the right tool head attached the V10 performed like a champ. Using it sans tethered to a cord like a traditional vacuum was a liberating experience to say the least as it allowed for it to be used in more areas around the home.

At maximum settings, it was the match of any wired vacuum cleaner and took dirt, dust, cobwebs cat hair, clumps of crumbs and more in one pass. It even managed to tackle a deep plush carpet with tangled hair accumulated over the course of several years.

Unfortunately at this setting, it’s rather loud and ran with an audible high-pitched whine almost akin to a miniature jet engine starting up but it’s only for short periods of time. That and it also only managed to last under ten minutes, give or take a few depending on what attachments you used. This mode worked best for especially stubborn bits of dirt and was strong enough to literally lift  a rug off the floor.

At the moderate two-bar and one-bar setting the V10 had a lot more endurance measuring in at about 45 minutes or so for slightly less suction power but that’s already plenty to begin with andit was able to accomplish almost all of our needed cleaning around the car, home and office without faltering. Most flat surfaces, wood flooring and all but the most stubborn bits of dust were handled without problems. It was also a lot quieter as well with just a modest hum that can barely be heard over the next room.

Once you’re done, disposing of accumulated dirt from the V10’s bin needs you to slide a latch out along a slider until the bin opens up completely. Due to its linear design, you’ll need to remove any attachments on the V10 to empty it out; it’s not a major quibble on account of its compact design but it’s still a chore. The sliding mechanism is also somewhat stiff even after several tries over the course of our testing period and needs need a bit more effort than usual to push it open.  

Once you’re done, charging it from a completely dry battery requires about three and a half hours; about the length of a feature length movie so it’s an entertaining way to pace yourself for house chores. Most times, we got quite a bit of cleaning done on the two-bar and Max settings in short spurts before parking it back to charge.

Dyson Cyclone V10 Conclusion

It has been said that ‘you get what you pay’ for and that saying holds true for the Dyson Cyclone V10. During the course of our test, it managed to clean up everything thrown at it including challenging bits of detritus like long hair, fine cat hair, tiny bits of dust stuck in corners, gravel and more without faltering. As far as endurance is concerned, the V10 offers one of the best endurance ratings in a cord-free vacuum and on mode 2 and 1 offered nigh on an hour of use without significant compromises in effectiveness..

There are some quibbles of course like a stiff slider for opening the bin and the lack of a hot swappable battery but these are minor quibbles at best. Will it replace a traditional corded vacuum? By and large yes for all but the most demanding users as you get more cleaning done around the house without the whole affair feeling like an onerous chore by laboriously hopping around from plug point to plug point.

If you’re looking for a vacuum cleaner that will get you cleaning more often and more effectively on account of its exceptional portability while also offering truly superb durability that will last for years to come, the Dyson Cyclone V10 will not let you down and is worth every single penny.

What we liked Innovative set of tool attachments, easy to use in challenging locations around the home, exceptional performance
What we didn’t Not cheap, non removable battery,
We Say The Dyson Cyclone V10 cord-free vacuum does not come cheap but that’s the price you pay for excellence as it packs a potent combination of power, portability and endurance to make it one of the most powerful (and potentially the most used) cord-free vacuums that money can buy for your home.

Specifications
Price RM2,999 for Absolute, RM3,399 for Absolute+, RM2,699 for Fluffy
Bin volume 0.54L
Suction power 150AW
Run time 60 minutes / 3.5 hours charge time
Attachments Soft roller cleaner head, direct drive cleaner head, combination tool, crevice tool, mini motorised tool, soft dusting brush
Size/Weight 250 x 1,241 x 256mm / 2.5kg
Review unit courtesy of Dyson