Dyson DC11 Telescope Review

Overall Rating

Compact, powerful, high quality, refined design

Quite heavy. Takes a little while to set up and store.

The Dyson DC11 All Floors is a beautiful piece of kit, with plenty of fine touches to delight you as you use it. Quite amazingly, it makes vacuuming fun. (Well, almost.) The compact design makes it possible to store the unit in a small under-the-worktop cupboard, but for the price of this compactness you have a small assembly task to undertake every time you use the unit. Unclip the telescopic section; unclip the hose from two points; remove the head; attach to the telescopic section; extend the telescopic section; pull out the flex; plug in; switch on and we're off. Phew. The novelty of the satisfying clicks and ingenious design wears off after about the third time you put the device together. If you have the room, you'll probably leave this vacuum assembled; it's a lot less hassle.

The function of the cleaner is pretty much flawless, give or take a few niggles. The Turbo Head features reasonably powerful brush, but with a distributed pattern of bristles this means it doesn't beat - it merely agitates. Still this is enough to dislodge hairs, though not enough to beat our stubborn dirt. A turbine mounted directly behind the head powers the brush. To disengage the turbine, you press in a panel on the side - suction keeps it closed - and the head then functions well on hard floors. Despite the turbine's bulk, the head will go under a four-inch gap, and the thoughtful design of the hinge between the head and the pipe means that you can push the head about 10 inches under furniture. But the weight of the turbine-powered brush and telescopic section make this cumbersome to manoeuvre. Not as bad as an upright, but heavy going for a cylinder.

The telescopic pipe is finished in brushed aluminium and looks splendid. The handle has a trigger to disengage the suction (and possibly re-enable the turbine head), which is a nice touch, and the hose is of a perfectly functional length - enough for about 9 stairs, but not the full flight.

The main unit is a lovely piece of compact design, but perhaps a little heavy. The two large wheels make for easy manoeuvring over thresholds, but the design is not so good at being dragged around furniture. The unit tends to seesaw about the wheels, but this action allows the cleaner to be hauled up stairs by the hose. On fairly typical stairs it teeters uneasily, so this is not sensible. A comfortable handle makes it easy to carry, though, even with the hose extended. True-to-form for a Dyson the suction is powerful and consistent, and that fact mitigates all other faults.

The twin-cylinder dust unit is great. Hearty clunks when you disengage the catches. Simple buttons to press to empty, and not at all messy in this process. In fact the shape of the cylinder unit and the remote button to disengage the swing-down base makes this the simplest and cleanest empty I've ever come across. This is a tremendously refined design, right down to the curved handle.

Five vortices for each cylinder do a fantastic job of separating the dust. You can see the difference between dusty inlet and the immaculate outlet. The filters are washable, but after about a fortnight's use the ones in this unit are almost spotless, so I don't envisage performing this task for some time yet.

The flex is functional but nothing exceptional, and the finish is a pleasing metalized polypropylene. Tough as old boots. The bumpers and wheels are fashioned from something a little softer, but not rubber. The nooks and corners present in the design are typical of a Dyson, so if you want sleek lines in your vacuum cleaner look elsewhere.

In conclusion, a lovely piece of kit. This undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of design if you live in a flat and your space is at premium, but if you have the room in the cupboard under your stairs, there are possibly more economical and light-weight vacuums (e.g. the Dyson DC08).

Members' Comments onchrisky's Review

• kiyawhite on 6th Aug 2006

  Do you have any idea why Dyson decided to give the DC11 a twin-bin. Was it for style, for the telescope system or something else?