Dyson V11 Absolute Pro: All things clean and beautiful

Those of us who have been used to leaving the cleaning to someone else suddenly find we have to get down to doing the job ourselves.

That led to a big surge in enthusiasm for cleaning tools. I was thankful for my Dyson V8 vacuum cleaner and added a spinning mop to my arsenal and haven’t regretted it. But with lockdown opening up, I decided I might like to try Dyson’s top end vacuum cleaner, the V11 Absolute Pro, though the V8 still works fine.

This has been around in India for a few months now and is supposed to be powerful enough to remove particles as small as 0.3 microns including bacteria and allergens. While it won’t take away the threat of the coronavirus from your home, it will help minimise the chance of problems from breathing in dust that could complicate matters if one did get the infection.

The V11 Absolute Pro is built on the same concept as Dyson’s other handheld models. Being as expensive as they are, people often ask me why I don’t just pick up a handheld vacuum cleaner for less than Rs 5,000. I did — and it fell apart on first use. It also had no suction power to speak off. And that’s one of the strengths of the Dyson cleaners. The unique design — now copied by other companies — uses Dyson’s own patented cyclone technology. A fan sucks in the dirty air which goes into the top corner of a bin at an angle that makes it spiral around at supersonic, creating centrifugal force. This 125,000 rpm storm causes the big dust particles to spin out of the air stream and fall to the bottom of the bin. It filters trap particles as well. Using the cleaner, you’ll feel the air coming out almost into your face, but that’s filtered air and said to be cleaner than what you’re breathing otherwise.

Features

The top-end V11 Absolute Pro (or V11 as we’ll call it) is a lot heavier than the V8 I’ve used, so if you have delicate wrists you might want to explore the others from the range. It’s got about ten attachments including a long wand that attaches to other tools, extenders, various brushes, crevice tools and three motorised tools which handle the cleaning of wooden, marble and other flooring, carpet, upholstery etc. Many not the tools can be attached to the long stick to reach up to the ceiling, clean curtains, the tops of pelmets etc and softer brushes can be used for dusting and cleaning delicate things like keyboards. This is an advantage the cordless handheld cleaners have over the round robotic ones that can’t obviously reach up anywhere. On the other hand, they can do some wet cleaning which the Dyson cleaners can’t. One of the motorised tools is designed to sense the difference between floors and carpets and switch cleaning modes accordingly — because thick carpets really need more powerful suction.

Differences between the Dyson V8 and V11

The differences between the V8 and V11 cleaners include a much more powerful battery. It can last a whole 75 mins, which should be enough vacuum cleaning for anyone, when used on its Eco mode and the time will drop if one moves to the medium or boost mode. How you’ll know the amount of battery life remaining is from a little LCD screen on the side that faces you. This gives battery information, lets you change modes with a button and even gives some diagnostic info for when the filter needs cleaning of if the bin needs to be emptied, something that just needs a little handle like component to be pushed down or forward which will then let the bin slide forward and empty out. The filters, incidentally, are user-cleanable and don’t need to be replaced as with air purifiers.

The V11 is strictly a handheld machine. You can’t pull the cord along and use it because it won’t switch on until it’s unplugged. Everything on this machine is maintainable by the user and if you end up damaging one of the tools badly, they don’t cost that much to replace. Why I’m particularly sold on this type of vacuum cleaner is the versatility it gives and the way it builds up cleanliness over time. Because it’s always handy (you can wall mount it) you can just grab it, snap on the right tool, and clean whatever it is you spotted. Over time, when you’ve deep-cleaned corners and skirtings and so on, the space just becomes overall cleaner. After a while you’ll find you may not need to use it as often as in the beginning.