Dyson V11 Absolute Pro review

After putting an end to making corded vacuum cleaners in 2018, Dyson has released their new cordless vacuum cleaner V11 Absolute Pro in India last month. The new vacuum cleaner is said to have 20% more suction power, as well as a handy LCD screen that displays the remaining run-time and “machine performance in real time”. 

Undoubtedly, the claims seem alluring on paper as the predecessor V10 was already a great cleaning machine in itself. But the new one has got a more advanced and powerful Digital motor, which Dyson is pretty confident about. 

Dyson's confidence in cordless vacuums was conveyed right when they ditched the corded vacuum. It's a big move, so it made us eager to dig. So we find out what makes the company so confident about the new V11 Absolute Pro.  

Price and availability

The Dyson V11 Absolute Pro vacuum is priced at Rs 52,900 for the normal variants and the Gold variant which we reviewed costs Rs 59,900 . We not would not recommend buying the Gold variant unless you're too keen to have Gold aesthetics wherever you keep the vacuum.

You can check out the products at Dyson demos stores in DLF Promenade, Select City Walk in New Delhi and VR Mall in Bengaluru, Dyson's official website, Amazon India. In-home Demo services are available in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad, as well as at select Croma stores in Delhi NCR and Mumbai.

Design and build

We reviewed the Gold color variant of the V11 Absolute Pro and there's no denying that the design look similar to its predecessor. Nonetheless, it still looks absolutely sleek and premium to proudly display it in your living room. Like the V10, it gives a total futuristic and sci-fi feel that ensures Dyson's signature style right from the moment you look at it.

It's a design that should look fairly unobtrusive in most homes when slotted into the wall-mounted charging dock or on the stand-style dock.

In comparison to the V10, the new Dyson V11 Absolute Pro features a plasma-blaster like in-line configuration module which consists of the bin, motor and cyclone array. All these parts are aligned in a straight line to ensure even more powerful suction over an obstructed or diverted airflow.

Behind the barrel you’ll find the V11’s cyclone array, which consists of 14 cyclones in total; Dyson says that they generate “forces of more than 79,000g to fling microscopic particles into the bin”, including pollen and bacteria. This part of the machine is what adds the futuristic touch to the design from the outside. 

Another change in the design comes as the 40% bigger bin that has a new way of emptying out trash. You now have to point it towards the trash can and simply push the latch. Although it's an improvement over the previous method, it still leaves us asking for more as we're used to expecting flawlessness from the Dyson machines.

The biggest addition of the new V11 vacuum is the display on top of the barrel. It is very well placed to have a proper look at the animations. The display itself is bright and colorful, and with crisp images that shows real-time information of the remaining battery run time in three different modes - eco, auto, and boost. 

Additionally, it displays maintenance alerts like filter cleaning reminder, airway blockage alert and also a visual demo of how to unblock the airway. There's also a button at the bottom of the LCD to switch between the three power modes. 

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The build quality is top-notch. Be it the attachments or the main barrel, everything's made of high-quality material and the finish doesn't disappoint either. It is as good as you'd expect from a machine of this price. The transparent material that wraps around the bin is said to be made of the same form of plexiglass, which is used for making airplane windows. It is lightweight, relatively strong, and transparent. The rest of the parts and attachments also ensure similar build quality and finish.

What we really liked was the new storage stand and charging cradle that allows you to place the vacuum anywhere in the house. Like every Dyson product, even the stand is easy to install and doesn't spoil the aesthetics of your room. The company still bundles the wall-mounting bracket but we like the stand as the go-to option among the two.

The white colored stand/charging station has a solid circular base to counterweight the machine and attachments you put on it. There's one charging dock, with another latch for extra pair of attachment, and a dual attachment holder that can be fixed on the shaft to hold the smaller ones that you'd use frequently.

Another impressive feature of the V11 is its adaptability. With a number of attachments, we were able to clean almost every corner of our rooms, beds, cars and even closets. It's really smart from Dyson to put a single latch for all attachments, which can be attached to the vacuum with or without the extension rod. 

Moreover, switching between attachments is super-easy, all we had to do was an easy push, release, and swap.

Features and performance

Speaking of anything that runs on power and has no cords, battery life is always a crucial factor. Especially in vacuums, after all, who would want it to run out of juice halfway through a cleaning spree.

To tackle this, Dyson has three battery modes for different use cases: auto mode, boost mode and eco mode. Eco mode is best for long cleaning sessions, and gives you up to an hour of cleaning time; however, it’s suction is less powerful than Boost mode, which is designed for cleaning ground-in dirt (but will drain your battery life fairly quickly and is slightly noisy.)

The Auto mode uses the in-built sensors on the High Torque cleaner head to detect brush resistance, allowing the V11 to change the suction power to suit carpets or hard floors in real time. This means you don’t need to change the brush head for different types of floor.

The cleaner head uses DLS (Dynamic Load Sensing) to sense the brush resistance up to 360 times a second, which is then communicated to the motor and battery microprocessors. Then it automatically adjusts the motor speed by judging the type of surface. In our experience, it made a pretty accurate reading of the floor as we could hear the suction power going up and down while moving from the wooden floor to carpets, and the change is instant.

This not just helps in proper cleaning of all types of surfaces but also eliminates the hassle of manually switching speeds or changing the cleaning head. 

The High Torque cleaner features a mixture of stiff nylon bristles that are designed to drive out ground-in dirt from carpets, as well as soft anti-static carbon fibre filaments, which work to collect dust from hard floors.

We used it in Noida, where dust is a common issue in most homes. As expected, we used the Dyson to clean places we've tried to reach with the conventional tools. Just one word, impressive. You just have to know the right attachment and that's it.

The V11 Absolute Pro, for us, was a toy that all of us wanted to play with. Cleaning is stereotypically assumed to be a feminine chore in India and this machine absolutely massacres this norm. It's made to be used by literally anyone who can handle its weight and has some common sense. That's how fun and easy to use it is. 

We tried vacuuming fine dust found in mattresses and sofas as well as larger pieces of cereal from both carpet and wooden floors, and the suction was visibly powerful. The Dyson V11 had no problem with sucking up larger chunks of debris as well as very fine particles.

This is partly thanks to the new V11 digital motor, which is said to be 20% more powerful than the V10, spinning at 125,000 revolutions per minute. The motor also has a triple diffuser built in for minimal noise – we were impressed by how quiet the V11 was compared to traditional corded vacuums. In fact, it's barely audible when used in 'Eco' mode. 

The downsides include its weight that one could start feeling in hands after 15-20 minutes of no-break vacuuming. The other one is that the trigger switch is so sensitive that we ended up pressing it accidentally at multiple occasions. 

A very underrated yet useful feature is airway blockage alert. The display will play a demo of how to take the vacuum apart to fix the problem – a Dyson spokesperson told us this is one of the most common reasons for customers phoning its helpline.

As the release of the Dyson V11 is part of the company’s effort to tap into the wellness trend, a lot of importance has been placed on the vacuum’s filtration system. 

As it’s fully sealed, Dyson says the filtration system captures 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns, while expelling “cleaner air” in its place. As we couldn’t exactly see this in action when we tested the V11, we’d be interested to know whether those with allergies to pollen or dust find their conditions improve after using the vacuum around the home – though it’s important to note that Dyson makes no such health claims.

Charging time and battery backup

The Dyson V11 Absolute Pro comes with a 7-cell nickel-cobalt-aluminum battery. It's 20% bigger than the predecessor and has been upgraded to be controlled with a dedicated microprocessor. The microprocessor judges the surface and optimizes the amount of power needed depending on the usage. 

While this makes it more battery efficient, the overall run time is not hugely improved as the motor speed of the V11 has also increased. 

In our usage, we got around 30-35 minutes of runtime when the machine was used in Auto mode with a few bursts of Boost mode. Whereas on the Eco mode, the battery lasts around 60 minutes. Once drained, the battery takes between 4-5 hours to reach 100%. 

Since it has the easy to use charging dock in the stand itself, you won't specifically need to put it on charging. Just dock the vacuum after use and you'll rarely run out of power. 

Verdict

The Dyson V11 Absolute Pro is doubtlessly the most intuitive and user-friendly cordless vacuum cleaners available in India. Although it hasn't changed much in terms of design over the V10, the small upgrades and inclusion of features like the LED display, new digital motor, and improved filtration make it a worthy upgrade.

The company is confident about the V11 despite the high price because it's actually effective for deep cleaning. It effortlessly sucks both fine and larger bit of debris and the sensors also do their job impressively well. If spending 60K isn't an issue and you need the best, a demo of the V11 Absolute Pro is enough to convince you to put your money on this vacuum.

The design, ease of use, efficiency and the overall experience of using the Dyson V11 Absolute Pro has the ability to ignite that urge to pick it up and go on a cleaning spree. That, for us, is what makes it a meaningful investment.

Image credits: TechRadar India 

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