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- Powerful suction
- Superb battery life
- Good trio of attachments
- Heavy
- Lacks charging dock
- Not much cheaper than the cordless stick version
Don’t let the name of the Dyson Car+Boat fool you. Yes, this handheld vacuum cleaner is well suited to cleaning small spaces outside the home but it’s just as useful to have around the house, garage or workshop.
With three handy attachments and a long-running battery, the Car+Boat is ideal for cleaning up crumbs, pet hair and small spillages on any surface at any time. It’s expensive but it’s also the best handheld you can buy right now by some way.
Dyson Car+Boat review: What do you get for the money?
If the Dyson Car+Boat looks familiar, it’s because it does. As with all Dyson handhelds, it takes the lowest spec cordless stick the company still manufactures and repackages it without the extension wand or floor head. Dyson’s previous handheld was the V7 Trigger, though that dropped out of stock some time ago.This new version is essentially a stripped back Dyson V8 and will set you back £250. It comes in a smaller box than the full cordless stick version, without the extension wand and only handheld accessories – the mini motorhead, the crevice tool and the combination dusting brush and funnel. Unfortunately, the mini motorhead is the older style model, which would have originally come with the V8, rather than the hair screw tool that the company ships with most models now, including the Dyson V8 Absolute. Longer hair will get tangled up in the mini motorhead, which doesn’t happen with the newer attachment.
The other thing you don’t get that you might be used to from other Dyson devices is a wall-hanging charging station. Instead there’s just a power brick, which connects to the bottom rear of the handle for charging.
Dyson Car+Boat review: What’s it like to use?
Because of its heritage as a full cordless, the Dyson Car+Boat is a heavier duty handheld vacuum cleaner than most of its rivals. That comes with one significant downside, in that it weighs 1.5kg without any attachments, and is a bit of a lump to have to carry around. That isn’t a massive problem for quick cleans, but it might make your arm ache if you’re using the dusting brush to tackle dust at height or wanting to do a whole house clean.
The positive side to this is the battery life, which is significantly better than its handheld rivals, as shown in the chart below. It lasted 7mins 46secs in boost mode, and a magnificent 38mins 35secs on its standard setting. That’s significantly longer than any other handheld model.
Operating the vacuum requires you to hold down the trigger, which is easy to squeeze with no noticeable resistance. The power is controlled from a switch on the top, which flicks between either standard or boost mode. Three lights on the battery are all the information you’ve got on how much charge is left.
The attachments click firmly into place and are easy to release using the buttons. The emptying process is a bit more fiddly, requiring you to yank up the emptying handle, which lifts the filtration system out of the collection bin, while also opening the door on the base. A washable filter sits on the top and can be removed just by lifting it out, then rinsed in cold water to clean.
Dyson Car+Boat review: How well does it clean?
Measuring the suction power of the Dyson Car+Boat is tricky because, as with all Dysons, the motor cuts out if its tubes are blocked. In standard mode that happened at 7kPa on our pressure gauge, which as you can see in the chart below, is less suction than most of its rivals can muster.
However, if you switch on boost mode, suction is dramatically increased. Here, it cut out at 21kPa, which is better than any of its rivals.
This power translated well into cleaning results in my tests. I weighed out spillages of flour, Cheerios and pet hair, and dropped them onto both carpet and hard floor. I used the most appropriate tool for each job – the mini motorised head for hair and flour and the funnel for Cheerios, as there’s absolutely no gap in the motorised head for even the smallest Cheerio to pass through.
Here the results speak for themselves, with literally all the mess from every spillage being completely cleaned up, as you can see in the chart below. On hard floor, the various substances leapt up the vacuum and into the collection bin. On carpet, the agitation of the spinning brush on the motorised tool did a great job of dislodging dirt and hair, allowing the suction to lift it away and leave very little behind.
Dyson Car+Boat review: Should you buy it?
If you want a Dyson handheld vacuum cleaner that’s as powerful as a Dyson cordless stick, then the Dyson Car+Boat is the only option available at the moment. Handheld rivals such as the Shark Wandvac just don’t come close in terms of suction power or cleaning prowess. However, they often come with charging stands and are more convenient for having around and at the ready for cleaning up small spillages.
For heavy duty handheld cleaning, though, the only thing standing in the way of a full recommendation for the Dyson Car+Boat is its price. It’s not difficult to argue for it being worth the money, because it’s hands-down the most effective handheld I’ve seen recently. But if you shop around, you might be able to find a full Dyson V8 with most of these attachments and an extension wand and floor head to turn it into a full cordless stick, without spending that much more.
