Stick vacuum cleaners Vax Life U91-LF-B
The new Life Multipack from Vax gives you a set of two cordless vacuum cleaners - an upright and a handheld (the Vax H90-LF-B) – for £199.99. We took the upright vac, the U91-LF-B, for a spin - here are our first impressions.
The U91-LF-B claims to offer all the ‘suction of a conventional corded upright vacuum cleaner’, despite weighing a meagre 3.4kg. We found the vac's suction was impressive, and we loved how light the vac felt. But there were issues with getting into tight corners to reach dirt - and this model is noisy.
The Vax Life was simple to assemble from the box – just three items to join together. It uses a lithium-ion battery that's detatchable from the vacuum and slots into the base of the handle when you’ve charged it. An initial charge takes three hours and a light indicator tells you when the battery is fully charged.
At only 3.4kg, our researcher thought that the vacuum was light and easy to move around. And as with all cordless vacs, you don't have to worry about being too far from a socket.
Using the Vax Life
One particularly handy feature is that you can switch easily between vacuuming hard floors or carpets. You just press a button on the handle to switch the brush bar on for carpets, and again to take it off when you move to hard floors.
The Vax Life isn’t quiet but suction on our carpets was impressive. Considering how quickly it whizzes round, it still took most of the crumbs and paper off carpets with ease, and its brushheads even managed to pull up some deeper grime, leaving a noticeably cleaner floor.
But our user found it difficult to get the Vax Life to pick up grime and crumbs in tight corners and edges, and there are no attachments to help with this. A smoothly pivoting handle means that it’s no pressure on your wrist or back to try, but the base is simply too big to get right into tight spots. The handle does lower almost to the ground, so you can get under low furniture, however.
Putting your foot gently on the base and drawing the handle back makes the Vax Life recline, but it can stand upright when not in use so you don’t have to lean it against a wall for support.
Emptying the Vax Life cordless vac
It took our researcher a little while to figure out how to empty the dirt container, but this was simply stiff so, if you get one, be aware that you may need a bit more muscle to open it initially.
Once this little hiccup had passed, the Vax Life vac was very easy to take apart to empty the dirt – the container pops out and, with one press, a flap swings open so all you have to do is tap the dirt into a bin.
It's available online direct from Vax priced £199, and from Amazon priced at a more wallet-friendly £150.
Pros: Lightweight, brushbar button feature, good suction
Cons: Difficult to get into tight corners, noisy
Our full vacuum cleaner review has lab test ratings and reviews of more than 100 of the latest vacuum cleaners from brands including Dyson, Hoover, Electrolux and Bosch. You can also find out the best handheld vacs in our handheld vacuum cleaner review.
