Dyson V12 Detect Slim Absolute Extra

Underwhelming for the price. Dyson missed the mark on this one – So I have owned an old Dyson barrel vacuum for a little over 10 years that never skipped a beat and did an amazing job, didn’t require any replacement parts or anything. It was a weapon that paid for itself. I no longer required such a vacuum and wanted to move towards the cordless variety as they’ve been around now long enough where they’re not a powerless secondary quick clean option with a weak battery life. And an ex had an older cordless Dyson (can’t remember which one it was but it was released 4-5 years ago) that was great and really surprised me, apart from the battery life.

I spend a few weeks doing my research on all the Dyson cordless options reading reviews and comparison test between each model as well as competitors. I also used Dyson’s own suggested vacuum questionnaire and even did this multiple times with some minor adjustments in my answers and everything pointed to the V12 detect slim. On paper my place was the ideal environment for it. Very a mall apartment, over 80% hard flooring (wood and tiles), carpets short and firm in both bedrooms, no pets or even a gf shedding hair and no kids or housemate making a mess.

First impression out of the box where it was smaller than I anticipated by maybe 10% but I don’t have much mess to clean, and even if I did, I wasn’t bother if I would have to empty the bin mid vacuum as that’s so simple to do. But overall the build quality was great and what I would expect from a Dyson. The charging stand was a great addition as I rent and don’t want to be installing wall mounts etc. so overall really happy out with my purchase. The weight is super light and it’s very ergonomically designed. It looks great even set up on its stand in the living room.

Things changed when I used it though. I found it was nowhere near powerful enough when using on hard flooring. Maybe the laser isn’t such as good idea as I was able to see maybe 20% of the dust left behind that I might of otherwise not seen. It never felt clean enough to mop, using a conventional mop as to me it felt like there was too much dust left behind.

On the 3 times I did use it I had the roller stop rolling when I went over the floor mat that inside my front door (no blockages observed, and the one blockage I did have from a 20c coin the rollers actually kept spinning) which is almost like cardboard it’s that thin. The roller wouldn’t start rolling again even when spun manually and when I put it in boost mode. *Note this mode drains the battery like nothing else as I even tried using that manually, and it’s not a solution an all. The only way to get the roller to start again was to shut the machine down and restart it. I also tried to vacuum a small thin dead and brittle leaf that was by my front door. It wouldn’t have a bar of it. Didn’t register a blockage, just wouldn’t pick it up. It should have has no problem with it with how small and brittle it was.

Also I used the small brush tools to do a few simple things like cleaning keyboards and that also was terrible.

Oddly though the large carpet head did well on my carpets. Not exceptional but good enough. This makes me feel like maybe there’s an issue where on hardwood, tiles and any unbroken surfaces like keyboards etc it doesn’t really create a seal of sorts like it does on carpet and it’s not powerful enough to compensate for that lack of Venturi effect.

I will say this though Dyson do have a 45 day return policy. I reached out via email and no crap from their side that most companies do when returning a product that didn’t deliver. There is no cost on my end to return, which is also a trick that gets used to discourage returns. I had thrown out all the packaging as I didn’t have space to leave it around and to be honest based my own experience with Dyson I wasn’t expecting to be returning the product. I was offered 2 options, one where they would send a box to me that I could return the vacuum in, or alternatively they gave me the address to their nearest brick and mortar store where I could return it.

So look overall I think this vacuum isn’t primary vacuum material, especially if you rent and have inspections. I do think it’s role would be that of a secondary vacuum for quick little jobs, but at the price it’s not something I could justify and I think quite a lot of people also couldn’t as a secondary appliance. But if the price isn’t an issue the yeah it would be great for little jobs around the house inbetween your normal cleaning cycle. I think they missed the mark slightly on the V12 detect slim. If the price point was 60-65% lower then they’d probably have a little gem on their hands.

And like I said Dyson’s support staff were easy to deal with, (my initial email was a little heated regretfully) but they were really nice and helpful when realistically the could’ve messed me around as I was close to the end of my return window. So yeah disappointed but not bitter.

Does the job, but wouldn't rave – Build quality is my main gripe. For the price, I would have expected much better. Cheap $200 vacuums have better quality plastic than this Dyson. Very disappointing. If I could have returned based on this, I would have. Its baffling why light-weight but durable plastic was not used?! Barrel NOT easy to empty as the marketing suggests; you have to pull out the debris manually, it DOES NOT drop out automatically because it essentially wraps around the cylindrical barrel, especially hair, longer fibres etc. Barrel size is fine for my apartment, but would be too small for three bedroom home or larger.