Vax LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum Cleaner Review

Design and features

• Good range of accessories
• LiftOut mode adds flexibility
• Large bin

Part of the new LiftOut range, the Vax LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum Cleaner is very similar to its more expensive sibling, the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design Corded Upright Vacuum Cleaner. 

Both cleaners are upright models with the LiftOut design. Just tap the handy foot switch, and the main bin and cylinder lift out, turning the vacuum into a more nimble cleaner, great for vacuuming stairs, a car or just for more delicate handheld jobs.

The main difference between this model and the Multi option is that with the Vax LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum Cleaner, you can’t attach the LiftOut section to the floor head for cleaning under sofas and other bits of low furniture.

In upright mode, the bin sticks out too far to get under furniture. If you’ve got bits of furniture that you want to clean under with the floor head, the more expensive option is better, or an alternative with a similar feature, such as the Shark Stratos NZ860UKT.

Even though the floor head can’t be used, the LiftOut section is still a very useful trick to have. This section can be used with the wand attached or just with a shorter hose section. The former is useful for cleaning without bending down or up high; the latter is for cleaning close-up and fiddly spaces such as a car’s footwell.

Vax has thoughtfully designed the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum. On the body, there’s space for two tools, with one clearly marked for the 2-in-1 crevice tool and brush, leaving a spare spot.

This can be taken by either the pet hair removal tool or the stair tool; there’s no mini motorised brush as you get with the more expensive models.

Buy directly from Vax and you get an additional toolkit for free, which gets you a storage bag, extendible, flexible crevice tool, deep debris tool and a fine dusting brush, plus an additional filter, which is very useful.

With the spare filter, you can remove the one from the cleaner (under the bin) and wash it, using the spare one while the other dries.

There’s a secondary post-motor filter, which needs replacing when it gets discoloured, so keep an eye on this.

There’s a 9m fixed-power cable, which gives a lot of reach. With a power plug in the middle of a home, you should be able to cover most floors with one socket; two at the most.

This cable wraps around the side of the vacuum cleaner when not in use, keeping everything neat and tidy.

To help while vacuuming, there’s a cord clip at the top of the handle, which holds the power cable out of the way. It’s a little thing, but it does make a big difference while cleaning.

A single power button turns the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum on and off. It’s easy to reach without bending down.

There’s also a button that turns the brush roll on and off. Few vacuum cleaners have this, but it’s a useful addition. On hard floors, the brush bar can flick dirt around, but turning it off fixes that problem.

There’s no power control, but the handle does have an air vent that you can open to reduce suction power. If you find that the vacuum cleaner is hard to push on some surfaces, then open this vent up a little.

Dirt is sucked into the large 2-litre bin. This lifts out entirely for emptying, with the top and bottom opening, making it easy to clean it out properly under running water.

Performance

• Decent suction
• Excellent carpet cleaning
• Edge performance could be better

I started by testing the Vax LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum’s raw power at the handle in air watts. With just one power mode, I found it delivered 151 AW, the same as its big brother. 

There are more powerful vacuum cleaners, such as the Hoover HL4, but this uses more power, so the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum is a little cheaper to run.

To demonstrate the level of power, I measure how far from the crevice tool the vacuum cleaner can collect rice grains. Managing suction from 2cm, the cleaner produces a good result: this shows it’s capable of quickly dealing with handheld jobs, and can suck dust out stuck in crevices.

I then moved on to my regular tests, starting with the carpet test where I sprinkled 20g of flour onto my test carpet. With a single pass backwards and forwards, the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum left a nice clean strip through the middle, sucking up well to the edge for the floor head.

Finishing the vacuuming off, the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum managed to collect an excellent 97.15% of the dust, which is pretty much the same result as its more expensive stablemate.

The same was true of the edge test, where I added 10g of dust to the edge of the carpet. Here, the LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum collected 90%, which isn’t a bad result, but I had to finish the test with the crevice tool.

I combed cat hair into my test carpet, and the Vax LiftOut Pet Corded Upright Vacuum Cleaner picked it all up in a single sweep, which is impressive.

Adding human hair to the carpet, the vacuum cleaner picked it all up, and not a single strand was wrapped around the brush bar. That’s impressive and reduces the amount of maintenance that this cleaner requires.

I measured sound at 73.8dB, which is about where I’d expect a plug-in cleaner to be.

Should you buy it?