Powerful suction, a powered brush bar floorhead and smaller powered tool, lightweight, cordless and well balanced in the hand – that’s pretty much the wish list all ticked off for stair-carpet cleaning. On normal power mode a few more passes were required to fully deep-clean the carpet, and there were noticeable grains of the heavier carpet-cleaning powder deep in the pile. None of these three cordless vacuum cleaners can compete with larger, corded alternatives, though and you’ll have to empty them fairly regularly.

The worst will give you less than twenty minutes of power and take more than half a day to fully recharge. Its stiff bristles pull pet hairs from even knotty-pile nylon carpets and its smaller form factor concentrates suction power for even better cleaning. Heading around the house with the Direct Drive floorhead attached, we cleaned for a near textbook 30mins 30secs on average from a single charge on normal power. Released in 2017, a year after the V8 and two years after the V6, it aims to bridge the gap between portability and performance. There are both corded and cordless models with both categories inundated with new products every year.

However, if you don’t want that and have a decent plug-in cleaner, the V7 is a quality cleaner that complements, rather than replaces, your existing cleaner. The 21 “Airwatts” of power suffices for light cleaning and the 30 minutes of battery life is just about enough time for a thorough sweep of a small two-bedroom flat with hard flooring. With practice you can easily get around a medium-sized room in that time and, having had the V6 and V8 on long-term test for many months now, we tend to default to quick clean-ups on the highest power setting.

This doesn’t lock, so switches off the suction as soon as you release the trigger – the theory being that the spring trigger encourages you to stop the motor between cleaning duties (say, moving between areas) so best preserves run-times. Both of the dusting brushes work well at their designated dusting duties, but we really like the new Soft Dusting Brush. This not only makes it easier to empty than the V6 but also makes it a breeze to remove hairs that might have become tangled inside. Our run-time tests are all using the powered tools, but expect to get an extra 10-20% run-time if you’re simply using the dusting or detail tools. The regular head works well but when its bristles encounter larger pieces of dirt, they’re often flung across the room, which isn’t ideal.Here, the lack of a soft roller or “Fluffy” head does hinder its performance with larger particles on hard flooring.

Suitable for carpets and hard floors, the head has a freely articulating neck, supporting rollers and it dismantles easily for cleaning. You’ll be surprised at the amount of cleaning you can get done in that time – and it’s great for quick spills or smaller areas such as the stairs. This score shows how well each cordless vacuum cleaner sucks up large debris, like rice and lentils, from flat hard surfaces. The Direct Drive floorhead’s stiffer rows of bristles drag hairs from carpet pile with ease and there are no areas on the head’s base for hairs to become stuck. Thanks to the lithium battery and Dyson’s control electronics, you get full power right up until it cuts out too.Through the centre of the bin is the main lifetime filter that pulls out from the top and is fully washable. Dyson’s V-series cleaners get a middle sibling in the form of the V7, tested here in its pet-hair-busting Animal guise. Richard has more than 20 years experience as a technology journalist, writing and editing on a vast number of publications.