Dyson’s Cordless V11 Is the Tesla Roadster of Vacuums
Welcome to The MH Wish List, where Men's Health editors highlight the coolest gear they’ve tested this year that make for the perfect gift this holiday season. If you’re looking for the latest and greatest tech, home, and fitness goods, we’ve got you covered for everyone on your list. This week, Executive Editor Mike Darling test drives the Dyson V11 Outsize cordless vacuum.
Gift This to: the WFH warrior looking to kick off 2021 with a clean slate.
What Makes This a Great Gift: It's one of the most useful new tech gadgets of 2020 that a guy might not think to buy himself.
I never thought I’d be the kind of person to get excited about using a vacuum, but after the better part of a year in self-isolation, here we are. I can’t understate the feeling of relief that washed over me the first time I removed Dyson’s V11 Outsize from its charger base.
Until that evening, I’d been using a no-frills plug-in Eureka vacuum that I found a few years ago on Amazon for about 40 bucks. While there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with my bare bones, budget-friendly accessory, it took me only a few seconds of using the Dyson to realize that I’d been cleaning with a Toyota Camry, and now I’d inherited a Tesla.
Thanks in part to its 12-inch wide cleaner head and burly motor that spins the brush bar up to 60 times per second, the V11 does not waste any time picking up after you. Dyson’s website gets more technical about things, declaring that the V11 spins up to 125,000 rpms, “the most powerful suction of any cordless vacuum,” and that its 18 “cyclones” generate “forces of 79,000g to fling dust into the bin without clogging the filter.”
All of that may sound a bit dramatic, but I can confirm that after just a few minutes of sweeping the Dyson around my apartment, I was, frankly, alarmed to see the chamber already filled with a sizable volume of dust, debris, and other unsightly gunk that the Dyson’s meeker predecessor lacked the horsepower to vacuum up. Of course, all that extra oomph isn’t free: The V11 Outsize is listed at a steep $700. Perhaps not the smartest use of everyone’s stimulus check, but if you can swing it, there’s plenty to like. (Full disclosure: I was provided with a test model for the purposes of this review.)
Beyond the impressive specs, there’s also a more obvious selling point here: Dyson’s vacuums simply look damn cool. With its bold colors and sleek, futuristic design, it’s the kind of gadget you could imagine Tony Stark reaching for after making a mess in his lab. Dysons are made to be displayed, proudly, and not jammed in the back of some storage closet. I also enjoyed some of the more subtle design flourishes, like the pistol-style trigger on the ergonomic handle, and the slick digital readout that gave me a real-time look into the remaining battery life. (A single charge gets you 60 minutes, and it comes with two batteries—more than enough juice for my one-bedroom apartment, and I assume most homes.)
Free of any cords, I roamed between the rooms of my apartment without pausing, significantly cutting down the time I might typically spend hopping from outlet to outlet. For the first time in as long as I can recall, I had my entire living space covered in less than 15 minutes. When I spilled some coffee beans the next morning, I had the mess all cleaned up and the V11 back on its base in a matter of seconds.
It’d be misleading to call the experience of vacuuming fun, exactly, but the Dyson definitely makes cleaning feel like less of a chore. And that alone could make it worth the (admittedly steep) investment.
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