We Bought a Dyson V8 Absolute and We Absolutely Love It!
So perhaps we should start this review with a baseline so it better helps you decide if this thing is suitable for you or not. We live in a one-floor apartment unit with two bedrooms and one study room, around 121sqm (or 1216sqft) in area size. Most of the flooring is hard-floor parquet with some carpets here and there. There is only the two of us living in the unit and we’d like to think we’re relatively neat people that does light cleaning sometimes everyday but mostly every 2-3 days. In the weekend we do more thorough cleaning when we are not busy on the hunt for vintage furnitures and good food :p This review is based on how we feel after using the Dyson V8 Absolute for a short while.
We’ll be frank with you by stating that we have been huge fans of Dyson from quite some time mainly due to the many accessories, power, and general reliability that many people have raved about compared to other manufacturers. For your information, for most household items we mainly like the brand “Bosch” and almost got one of their vacuums but it was in a similar price range to Dyson’s V8 which made it a hard sell for us. But trust us when we say we don’t take home appliance purchase decision making lightly — we’ve mulled over getting a vacuum cleaner for 2-3 years. Why? Because we are quite used to the old school of using a broom and manual mopping. But in 2020 we decided to get an electronic mop (not an all-in-one which we don’t like — something for another post) and thought must be nice to combine the brooming with a vacuum cleaner.
So down we go to the rabbit hole of deciding and budgeting which Dyson vacuum to get because we guarantee there is A TON of choice and its not super straightforward. But just as a recap, our understanding is that in SG these are the iterations that are available:
V12: this is the flagship in SG it seems, with all the bells and whistles (screen, laser beam, lightsaber, railguns, cannons — the last three is a lie but you get our point) but also the most expensive (more than S$1,100 u.p.!). Has the best battery life that you can plug and play too.
V10: seems like an upper middle tier product but came a few years ago with pretty strong power but not the laser beams and what nots of the V12. Pretty long battery life that seems like its interchangable (please check)
V8: sort of like the solid average product with average battery life average power and was launched in 2019 or something so not the sexiest product in the range but a common middle tier product
Other products: they have other models too thats really small, ones that are really good for hardfloors as it has a dual head, etc. So many eh!
Initially we really wanted to get the V12. After all we almost always go for flagships — its the pinnacle of power, technology, and innovation. But then we started to really got thinking and thought: yes of course the flagship is coolest it has all these LCDs and shows you what particle size was picked up with longer battery life even with that laser beam that shows you all the fine dust in the world. But did we really need that? Our living space is generally quite clean due to the frequent light cleaning we do, and it’s not like we’re house cleaning avocados (aficionados?) and wouldn’t the extra money be better spent to get a 1960s designer vintage chair or an Ultrasharp monitor? Anyhow, we decided that the V8 Absolute is really the one for us and we’ll go over that in a bit. But below are some snapshots of our baby.
At the time of writing, there is apparently two versions of V8: the older Absolute model and the newer “Slim” model. We didn’t really like the small form factor and the more “flimsy” feel of the slim models (this applied to all, including the V12 which is a pity seems like Dyson is moving to smaller form factors) hence we went for the V8 Absolute model. Also at the time of writing, there was this promotion from Dyson SG website that getting a V8 Absolute which already came with a lot of paraphernalia will also ship with 3 additional gadgets! Not sure if we’d use all of them but who isn’t interested in a bargain!? So the little thing came about two days after we ordered and below is some shots of the entire lineup they sent us.
You might be forgiven that like us, you thought someone mistakenly sent a whole weapons case looking at the many hoohaa and goodies that came along with the vacuum. Are they all useful? Yes, we guess so. Some obviously you would use more frequent than others but it does not feel like any of them is a useless gimmick. For us, that main head (big guy nearest to the machine) is the most frequently used as that does really well with hard flooring. The big boi next to it is the carpet cleaner which is pretty amazing at picking up particles you did not think was there in the carpet. They also have attachments with small soft or hard brushes, crevice nozzles, and a motor head specific for mattresses and upholstery (whenever our sofa decided to show up!). We’re not sure if anyone would still feel inadequate with the breadth of stuff you get.
So how does it perform?
That’s probably the million dollar question, or to be precise the S$550 question. For us it is more than enough! The V8 has a “Max” setting that apparently only lasts really short (like 7 minutes or something) but we’ve never felt like the need to go mad max and unleash medium-tiered hell. Using normal mode with the hard floor head, we can cover the entire apartment on a single charge (which can go for between 20-40 minutes apparently) before you charge it for 4-5 hours. In terms of power we’re not dealing with heavy debris and such so in our mind the power is super sufficient. Everything also works really well. We haven’t gone over the satisfaction of pulling the trigger every time and hear/feel the motor purring. Its so smooth!
Yes, there are definitely moments when some debris on the floor did not get picked up immediately and we have to go over it twice which is annoying when that happens — but to be fair we’re not so sure yet if this is because we went over the debris too fast or is this an example where power (and speed!) puts the higher models on the edge? There are also moments where initially you just worry that you’d never cover the entire 121sqm in one go and have to wait five hours to charge but this seems more psychological because of the many reviews highlighting it. For our use (and we don’t keep the trigger pulled at all times) we’ve never had to stop because of low battery. Although a use-case review of how good this battery maintains its capacity is another story — maybe we’ll do a 6 months real-world use review.
To us what is obvious was that this was not only a wiser choice, but it was the “sufficient” choice compared to going with our egos and getting the top of the line product. Yes, the V12 is the newest product hence the newest tech is embedded in. But it is also 100% more expensive and you really have to ask yourself: would you actually use and unleash all its power or is just self satisfaction? We’re glad we took a pragmatic approach on this one and would definitely recommend readers with similar circumstances and cleaning needs like us.
