Dyson cyclone v10 absolute review: A powerhouse cordless vacuum that’s worth the investment

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Cordless vacuum cleaners have really come into their own in recent years. Once inferior counterparts to their corded cousins, whose suction power they just couldn’t compete with, leading brands like Dyson have revolutionised the wire-free market with vacuums that have enough power to make your floors spotless in seconds. Case in point: the Dyson cyclone v10 absolute, which is an absolute powerhouse of a vacuum cleaner.

While it’s not the newest Dyson model – that’s the laser-focused V15 detect, which we also highly recommend – the v10 absolute is everything you could need in a vacuum for any size of home. And actually, its historic nature can work to your advantage, as it’s significantly cheaper than the latest launches, saving you around £200 in comparison while still doing a stand-up job on a wide variety of surfaces.

The v10 absolute is part of a wider v10 family that also includes the Dyson v10 animal (£349.99, Dyson.co.uk), which is essentially the same model, and also worthy of consideration.

The key difference is that the absolute includes an additional cleaner head, the soft roller, which was specifically designed for hard floors. The right buy for you will depend largely on your regular cleaning needs, but if you want a complete v10 package with all of the bells and whistles, or live in a home where hard flooring dominates the majority of the space, the absolute is absolutely (sorry) worth considering. Read on for our full review of the stick vacuum cleaner.

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We put the Dyson cyclone v10 absolute through its paces over a number of weeks, on both wood flooring and carpet, bathroom tiles, along skirting boards, and in the car. Our testing of the v10 coincided with moving house, so it was even used to give the previous property a professional level deep clean.

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Buy now £399.99, Dyson.com

Weight: 2.68kg

Dimensions: H 124cm x W 25.6cm x D 25cm

Capacity: 0.76l

Charge time: 3.5 hours

Run time: 60 minutes

Tools and accessories: 7 accessories and 2 cleaner heads

Variable power: Suction mode 1, suction mode 2 and boost mode

Attachments included: Direct-drive cleaner head, soft roller cleaner head, mini motorised tool, mini soft dusting brush, combination tool, crevice tool, filter, docking station and charger

Pros:

Cons:

Rating: 9/10

Assembly of the Dyson cyclone absolute v10 is genuinely foolproof – you just click the stick into the main machine and pop whichever attachment you need on the end, a process we managed without even finding the instruction manual. It arrives with a decent amount of charge straight out of the box (ours lasted about 15 minutes) but Dyson recommends that you plug yours in and power it up fully before tackling any proper cleaning tasks.

Both the charger and the drop-in docking station to fix to the wall are included, but you can also purchase the freestanding Dyson cyclone v10 “dok” (£150, Dyson.co.uk) which works for both the absolute and animal models and comes with five additional tools.

This is not a necessity, more of an added bonus if you have the budget, but either way, it’s worth getting a solution set up from the get-go – as is the case with most vacuums outside of the upright market these days, the v10 can’t support its own weight, so needs to be propped up when not in use. There is a rubber panel on the back that is supposed to allow you to lean it up against a wall, but we found this wasn’t that effective, and things got precarious fast, so would highly suggest finding it a permanent, supportive home near a plug from day one to minimise potential risk to your purchase.

The vacuum itself looks sleek, and is impressively lightweight – if you’re used to heavy corded vacuums, this will be a welcome relief for tired arms. The purple and grey colourway is something of a signature for Dyson, elevated in this incarnation with a copper metal wand for a contemporary – and slightly more expensive-looking – twist.

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The visual design enhances its results – the fact that the motor, bin and cyclone are all neatly aligned allows air to flow in a straight line for the strongest suction possible (approximately 20 per cent greater than the previous V8 line). It’s powered by the digital motor v10, which Dyson says “generates the suction power of a full-size vacuum” – a claim we can’t dispute, as it really is one of the most powerful and effective options we’ve used – alongside a group of 14 concentric cyclones (hence the name) work to pick up microscopic particles, like bacteria and pollen, and pop them straight into the bin. Clever features like this mean that the v10 absolute is certified asthma and allergy friendly by Allergy Standards Limited.

Another nice extra is the Dyson includes two filters with the cyclone v10 absolute so you can have continued use while the other is rinsed (using cold water, a job which takes about five minutes flat) and dried – rather like owning two sets of bedding so you can have one on the duvet while the other hangs on the line.

As soon as you open the box, there’s an array of attachments to get your head around; a bit overwhelming at first, but worth familiarising yourself with, as they really do impact the results. When laziness got the better of us and we tried to do a few vaguely-related tasks with a single head, performance was still good, but having the patience to switch to the right tool for the job really does make all the difference.

Our favourite was the woven soft roller cleaner head, which you only get with this v10 model, not its sister, the animal – it zipped around the hardwood floors of our ground floor in record time, and sucked up absolutely anything we put in its path – dust, crumbs, even the odd unintentional scrap of wallpaper from a recently stripped wall. If you do have a house that has predominantly hard surfaces, we do think the absolute is worth the extra £50 upgrade for this bonus accessory. However, the direct drive head also gives a satisfying, smooth deep clean on any type of flooring too, and we have to give a particular shoutout to the crevice tool for getting between sofa cushions and along skirting boards with marvellous accuracy. The swivel motion on the heads is seamless and gets around even the trickiest of corners without complaint.

You have to hold the trigger button down to operate the v10, but it’s super sensitive, so this isn’t a huge barrier and doesn’t leave you with aching fingers. One full charge of the cyclone v10 absolute gets you 60 minutes of cleaning time on the lowest setting, which, accompanied by the 0.76l capacity, is enough to blitz most homes without pause. If you use the maxed-out boost mode, however, this does deplete much faster (to just over 10 per cent of this, so the difference is quite dramatic). The “fade free” battery feature means you’ll get the same level of cleaning regardless of the amount of charge left, and there is a display on the side to indicate how much battery life remains so you don’t get caught out mid-clean.

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One of the (other) best features of the v10 absolute is the way it converts into a handheld vacuum cleaner effortlessly, negating the need to own both. We’ve ditched our separate car vacuum cleaner and have found the absolute just as effective on car seats and mats as it is on our home furnishings. For us, this just about sums up what’s so brilliant about this vacuum – it’s good at basically everything, so if you do choose to invest, it’ll streamline your cleaning process in almost every area of your life.

If you haven’t already gathered, we love this vacuum cleaner – there’s a reason why its sister model, the v10 animal, which boasts the same technology, is featured in our edit of the best cordless vacuums. There’s no denying that it’s an expensive piece of kit, but it’s not the most expensive Dyson out there right now by some way, and in our books, the outcome warrants the spend if you’re able to splurge on something really top-of-the-range.