Stick vacuum cleaners Rowenta Air Force
The Air Force is a slimline cordless vac that Rowenta claims has all the power of a cylinder and can vacuum for 40 minutes on a single charge. We’ve given it a whirl around our floors to see if we think it lives up to the hype.
It has an RRP of £129.99 and is available now from John Lewis and Lakeland. See it in action in our video review:
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Cordless vacuum cleaner
We assembled the Rowenta in no time. There are three pieces which slot together easily and just one large screw to deal with, so it’s not a fiddly job.
It needs to be charged for 16 hours before you can get started. This might sound like a long time, but it isn’t actually too bad - others on the market take as long as 24 hours to charge fully.
The charger plugs straight into the unit so there’s no separate charging base to put together or find space for, which is the case with some other stick vacs.
There’s no battery time remaining indicator so it might be a good idea to keep it plugged in to ensure it’s ready to use when you need it.
The cordless Rowenta Air Force vacuum cleaner
Air Force vacuuming
There are two vacuuming settings on the Air Force – floor and carpet. You can easily switch between the two using the button on the handle.
Using the carpet setting activates an ‘electrobrush’ booster function, which uses a motor to turn the brushes and is designed for more powerful dust pick up.
It does a good job on hard floors, but we found its pick-up on the carpet setting a little disappointing, especially given its claims of matching a regular cylinder’s cleaning power.
We had to run over some pieces of fluff and dirt on our carpet a couple of times to pick them up, and it seemed to struggle with hair on carpets. As a result, we think that if you’ve got mainly carpets at home you’ll still need a regular vacuum cleaner to get a really thorough clean.
It did, however, last an impressive 45 minutes on a full charge before dying off completely. And you can expect it to last 30 minutes if using the carpet setting constantly.
Rowenta vacuum cleaner features
One stand-out feature on the Air Force is its triangular shaped ‘delta’ floorhead - designed to clean in corners and awkward spaces more easily. It swivels and turns easily but you’ll need to keep a tight grip on the handle as it moves very freely.
The triangular floorhead does make getting into tight spaces easier and there is suction right at the tip of the floorhead, which makes it more effective at picking up dust and dirt in these awkward spaces.
The Air Force gets under all but the lowest lying furniture easily. It was rather more awkward to use on stairs as the handle isn’t height adjustable - but this is common to most stick vacs. There are some on the market with detachable handheld vacuum cleaners inside, which are much easier to use on stairs.
Although it’s fairly quiet on the floor setting, there’s a noticeable increase in noise when you switch to the carpet setting.
Maintaining and storing the Air Force
Rowenta says the dust container holds 0.9litres, which is reasonably good for a stick vac.
We found it easy to remove from the main body when it needs emptying – though it does require two hands, as you’ll need one to hold the vac steady while you remove it.
There’s a quick release button on the container itself, so emptying it is relatively mess-free.
The Rowenta is slimline and neat and it stands upright when not in use, too. If storage is an issue at home this is a great option as it doesn’t take up much space at all.
Pros: Slimline for easy storage, long running time, easy to manoeuvre
Cons: Noticeably noisy on carpet setting, carpet cleaning isn’t as good as hard floor