I know what you’re thinking — “that’s a weird title for a review”, but bear with me, okay, and you’ll see just why I’m never returning the V11 Absolute Pro that Dyson sent over to us for a review.
Working here at Beebom, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing just so many gadgets that I’ve honestly lost track (and count). However, I never thought I’d be this excited about a vacuum cleaner as I was when Dyson sent over the V11 Absolute Pro to us for review.
First off, this was my first real-world, hands-on experience with a Dyson product, ever, and it couldn’t have been a better one, straight from the unboxing. Look, I’m nothing if not an absolute maniac over in-box accessories. Seriously, give me more accessories in the box than I know what to do with, and my day is made; that’s exactly what it was like to unbox the V11 Absolute Pro. There’s just so much stuff in the box here. There’s the main machine itself, obviously, but then there’s all of this stuff:
- Docking station
- Charger
- Extension wand
- High torque head
- Soft roller head
- Crevice tool
- Combination tool
- Mini-motorized tool
- Mini soft dusting brush
- Mattress tool
- Up-top adapter
- Extension hose
- Wand storage clip
Yeah, that’s all of the add-ons, adapters, and heads I saw when I opened the V11 Absolute Pro’s box. It’s impressive. From there onwards, things just kept getting better and better.
Design and Build
The V11 Absolute Pro features remarkable design. It does. It’s not flashy or tacky, but it’s not too much of an understated design either — after all if you spend Rs. 52,900 on a vacuum cleaner, you’d probably not want to keep it hidden from the world, or maybe that’s just me, but seriously, even if you keep it in plain sight for the entire world to see, I wouldn’t blame you — that’s exactly what I did because damn this thing looks great. It’s a clean looking, relatively minimal design that just isn’t something I had expected to see on a vacuum cleaner. Plus, it’s hyper-intuitive in the way it’s been made. All the accessories of the V11 Absolute Pro just click into place and can be clicked out of being attached to the vacuum, or the extension wand with minimal effort and time. There’s a display on the back that shows you the mode the vacuum cleaner is being used in (more on that later), and the cleaning-time remaining. The filter simply locks into place, and can be cleaned with just a twist-off to take it out and cleaned, and cleaning out the waste-bin is just as intuitive. Overall, if I were to sum-up the design of this vacuum cleaner in a word, I’d say “intuitive”.
However, design would only go so far in making me happy. Other than being an absolute (no pun intended) sucker (no pun intended) for in-box accessories, I’m also a little careless with stuff, but the V11 Absolute Pro is built great. I never dropped the machine, thankfully, but I did bump the accessories into walls and tables a lot and they are still holding up well, so that’s amazing.
The build isn’t metal all the way, with the main machine having a plastic exterior for obvious, weight-saving reasons, but it’s not a cheap plastic build at all. It’s well built, it’s sturdy, and it feels strong and stable to hold and use. It’s just incredibly well built and I have only good things to say about the design and build of the V11 Absolute Pro.
Usage and Cleaning
Once I had unboxed the V11 Absolute Pro and awed over the sheer amount of accessories it came with, it was time to actually clean with the thing, and once again, things just kept getting better and better. First off, this is a cordless vacuum, which makes it extremely handy to use around the house without having to constantly manoeuvre the electrical cord around the house, through furniture settings, and in-between different power sockets for every other room. No, this just needs to be charged and charging the V11 Absolute Pro is, once again, an intuitive process — clearly, Dyson has made impressive design choices here.
Simply pop in the machine to the charging dock, or connect it directly to the charging cable for around 3 hours, and the V11 is ready to go. I did just that because I wanted an uninterrupted time playing around with the many attachments, and when I finally got to cleaning… my oh my.
The V11 Absolute Pro cleans like, well, an absolute pro. It really does. I could throw numbers like 185 Airwatts of suction power, 14 cyclones generating over 75,000G force, 125000 RPM motor, etc, but at the end of the day, what all of that means, is deep, satisfactory cleaning.
I’ve cleaned everything with this vacuum, from living room couches and curtains, to carpets, wooden tables, doormats, wall skirtings, fans, and the floor, and the V11 has cleaned everything to near perfection.
A lot of that is also thanks to the fact that there are attachments for every use-case you might have. There’s the motorised-roller tool that comes with a soft roller and is great for cleaning wooden surfaces, there’s the mini-motorised roller tool that’s great for cleaning carpets and couches, and there’s the High Torque cleaner head that is great for cleaning floors and carpets thoroughly, and it can detect the surface its on and adjust suction accordingly — so you get higher suction and faster roller movement on carpets, and lower suction and slower roller movement on the floor. It’s pretty great.
There’s also the carpet cleaning tool, the crevice tool which is perfect for reaching tight spaces, the combination tool for dusting or for removing cobwebs, the mini-dusting tool, and more.
I was also very impressed by the up-top adapter which makes it incredibly easy to clean things like fans, or that hard to reach shelf on top of your cupboard.
Cleaning Modes
The V11 Absolute Pro also has three different power modes that I have at my disposal.
- Eco
- Medium
- Boost
Eco is what Dyson recommended I use this vacuum at for regular usage, and that’s exactly what I did… for a couple of days. The Eco mode is honestly great for everyday cleaning — it’s powerful enough, and lets the battery last longer.
Medium, on the other hand, is what I most commonly used, because I find myself needing to vacuum my couches most often, thanks to all the food I eat while sitting on them, and Medium just offers that extra power to clean out things
Boost mode is just ridiculous. It’s almost as if it exists purely for Dyson to show off just how powerful this thing is. It eats battery for dessert.
So yeah, with the combination of the incredibly powerful suction power, and the sheer number of attachments for almost every use-case you might have, the Dyson V11 Absolute Pro is impressive, amazing, and absolutely ridiculous in how great it is.
Cleaning and Maintenance
Remember that scene in Friends, where Monica cleans her apartment with a vacuum cleaner and then cleans the vacuum cleaner with a smaller vacuum cleaner? Yeah well, that was funny, but vacuum cleaners actually do require cleaning and maintenance, so Monica was doing the right thing, but I digress.
Coming back from random Friends references, cleaning and maintaining the V11 Absolute Pro is nice and easy too, as I found out after cleaning my house and car with the V11.
The dust, dirt, and all the other stuff the V11 picks up gets collected in a chamber, and I was happy to see that emptying it in a bin was easy and didn’t dirty my hands at all. It’s a simple push on the red handle underneath to push out all the collected dirt into a bin. It’s also strangely satisfying to do this.
Other than that, there’s the filter that can be cleaned and the motorised attachments that can also be cleaned. I didn’t have to clean any of those things in over two weeks of regularly using the V11 Absolute Pro, and that goes to show just how good this machine is, or maybe my house is just that clean.
Still, if the need arises to clean the filter, it’s super easy. Just a simple twist on the purple cover and the filter comes out. Clean it with a brush if that’s good enough, or wash it, and then let it dry for 24 hours before putting it back in the machine, and that’s it.
Oh also, before I forget, what I found cool about this entire filter situation is this — when the filter is dirty, the display on the back will tell you that it’s dirty. So yeah, there’s no need to keep an eye on the filter turning from white to brown or black to know whether it needs washing. Just leave it to the V11 Absolute Pro.
Battery and Charging
Speaking of the display on the back, this is also where the V11 Absolute Pro displays the remaining cleaning time, and the charge percentage when the unit is connected to the charger.
Charging the V11 can be achieved in two ways:
- connect the V11 Absolute Pro to the charging cord directly.
- route the charging cord through the wall-mount, and hang the V11 Absolute Pro on the wall-mount to charge.
I tried charging the V11 Absolute Pro both ways, but I didn’t install the wall mount out of sheer laziness, so I’m still using the wall mount, but it’s more of a floor mount now, which is just… well, it is what it is.
Anyway, the V11 takes around 3 hours to fully charge, and then, offers a battery life that varies according to the mode you’re using. In Eco mode, the V11 Absolute Pro lasts around 60 minutes, which is enough time to thoroughly clean out your house. This falls to around 20-30 minutes in Medium mode, and around 10 minutes in Boost mode.
I used the Boost mode once, just for the heck of it, and it’s ridiculously powerful. It’ll probably come in handy to clean out pet hair off of your couch. For the most part, though, I used the Dyson V11 Absolute Pro in Eco and Medium modes.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Great design
- Easy to use
- Extremely powerful
- Great battery life
- So. Many. Attachments.
Cons:
- Pricey
Dyson V11 Absolute Pro Review: My Precious
In conclusion, much like Gollum was with the ‘Ring’ in The Lord of the Rings, I am not willing to part with this vacuum cleaner, and that’s as much of a surprise to me as it probably is to you. The V11 Absolute Pro is amazing, it offers easy usability, great battery life, more power than you will normally need, an army of attachments for almost every use-case you might have, and so much more. It is pricey, at Rs. 52,900 for the regular variant and Rs. 59,900 for the special Gold variant that also brings a floor-stand along with all the accessories in this one.
I know what you’re thinking right now — “Rs. 52,900 sounds too steep for a vacuum cleaner” — and you’re right, it is. However, the Dyson V11 Absolute Pro justifies that price with all the features, the ease of use, the design, and everything else that it does. I had, so far, stayed away from the temptation of using a Dyson vacuum, but now that I have, I can’t go back to anything else. So no, dear Dyson rep who is reading this, if you want this V11 Absolute Pro unit back, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Buy the Dyson V11 Absolute Pro from Amazon (Rs. 52,990)
