Beko PowerClean Cordless Vacuum Cleaner VRT94929VI Review

An excellent and low-cost appliance, the Beko PowerClean Cordless Vacuum Cleaner VRT94929VI cleans well even on its lowest power settings. It’s flexible and comes with a great range of accessories, but it does require some brute force to move around, especially on the higher power settings.

Introduction

If you had to name a vacuum cleaner brand, Beko probably wouldn’t come high up on your list. Judging by the quality of the Beko PowerClean Cordless Vacuum Cleaner VRT94929VI, that’s a shame – this is an excellent cleaner, doing well at its lowest setting, and with plenty of power at the top.

It can be a little hard to push at times, and a dedicated hard floor head would have been welcome, rather than the current method of having to swap the carpet roller for a soft floor roller. Still, given the price and high-end performance, it’s hard to fault the VRT94929VI.

Design and features

• Can stand up by itself (sort of)
• Useful charging stand
• Good range of accessories

The Beko PowerClean Cordless Vacuum Cleaner VRT94929VI is pretty much like any other cordless vacuum cleaner, although it does have a couple of neat features. First, the handle has a handy stick-out grip that fits between your fingers. 

This makes the vacuum cleaner a bit easier to grab, particularly if you want to lift it up high and clean your ceilings or on top of cupboards. Weighing just 2.9kg, this cordless cleaner is pretty easy to lift up.

Second, the VRT94929VI can stand up by itself. Well, sort of. When you’re vacuuming, you can click the floor head to lock the wand vertically, which enables the cleaner to stand up. It’s a little unstable, and it works better on hard floors than carpets. I found the stand-up mode on the Hoover H-Free 300 a touch more stable; however, here, freestanding means that you can quickly move a bit of furniture while cleaning without having to lay the vacuum flat on the floor.

Rather than a wall dock, Beko has provided a floor stand. The VRT94929VI drops into position and charges from this dock, with clips beneath and on the stand that take all of the accessories. It would have been nice to have a wand clip so that you could carry at least one of your most commonly used accessories around with you.

A removable battery means that if you run into problems down the line then you can replace it easily.

Beko provides a decent range of accessories in the box including a motorised floor head, crevice tool, large dusting brush and mini-motorised tool, which is ideal for stairs or for cleaning sofas.

There’s also an angle tool in the box, which bends to accommodate almost any space; it’s great for cleaning on the top of cupboards and wardrobes.

With the motorised floor brush, Beko provides a carpet roller and a soft roller for hard floors. Changing between the two requires a coin to unlock the installed roller, before you clip the alternative into place. On the one hand, it means you get dedicated tools for hard floors and carpets, without needing much more storage space. However, it’s more fiddly to switch between the two than if you had a machine with two dedicated floors heads, such as the Dyson V15 Detect. 

In either mode, the Beko VRT94929VI has headlights at the front of its floor head, lighting a path in front of the vacuum so you can see the area you’re cleaning.

In regular vacuum cleaner mode, the wand has a release button that lets it bend in the middle. It’s a neat trick that lets you clean under tables, chairs, sofas and other bits of furniture without having to bend down. It’s a similar to the flexology tech of the Shark IZ251UKT.

Controls are located on top of the vacuum cleaner, with a power button that turns on the vacuum in Low mode. You can then use the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons to increase or decrease the power, moving between Medium and Turbo modes. There’s no indicator to show which mode you’re in, although it’s easy enough to hear the difference.

Once the decent-sized 0.9-litre bin is full, you can empty it either by hitting the release button underneath, or you can take out the entire bin and cone for cleaning and emptying.

There’s also a washable HEPA filter at the top, which you should clean regularly to keep the vacuum cleaner operating at its peak efficiency.

Performance

• Lots of raw power
• Does well on all surfaces
• Quiet on the lower settings

I started my tests by measuring the vacuum cleaner’s raw power in AirWatts (AW), which evaluates both suction power and airflow together. It’s the only true way to measure a vacuum cleaner, and you shouldn’t trust suction figures alone. 

Starting on Low power, I saw what seems like a basic 44.46AW; Medium power was a touch above what I’d normally expect on 88.76AW; on Turbo, the cleaner measured 203.54AW – I’ve only seen Dyson cordless cleaners with more suction.

Raw figures are a good indicator of what to expect, but real-world tests are important to show how efficiently the power can be applied to vacuuming. With my next set of tests, I was hugely impressed.

Due to the design of the floor head, there’s a good seal between it and the floor, so that suction power is applied directly to the floor without much leakage. On the upside, it means that the Low setting is more powerful than you may at first think; the downside is that on Turbo it can be quite difficult to push the vacuum cleaner around since the head practically sticks to the floor.

My first test was the carpet test, where I spread a teaspoon of flour onto the floor. Running through on Medium power, I managed a clean sweep through the middle with all dirt picked up. 

Next, I ran the vacuum on Turbo power through the top of the remaining mess, and on Low power through the bottom. In both cases, the flour was removed, showing that you can actually achieve excellent cleaning on Low power.

Next, I tested pet hair removal, combing cat hair into the test carpet. Here, I found that Low power was enough to remove everything with a single sweep forwards and backwards, which is hugely impressive.

Moving on to the tough edge tests, I sprinkled a teaspoon of flour up against the skirting board on carpet tiles. With a pass through on Low power, the Beko VRT94929VI was able to remove most of the dirt, although some remained right at the edge. 

Medium power largely fixed this, although there was still a bit of flour left that required the use of the crevice tool.

Finally, I tested hard floor performance by sprinkling a teaspoon of rice onto the hard floor. This time, I used the soft roller with the vacuum cleaner on Low power. It managed to suck up all grains through the middle, but turning the cleaner off saw a few grains of rice drop out. For larger particles, Medium mode does the job.

Battery life is quoted at 60 minutes, although this is on the lowest setting. Up the power to Medium and it drops to around 22 minutes, while you’ll see around 9 minutes on Turbo power. Fortunately, for most jobs, the lowest power setting will be sufficient; with a few jobs requiring the Medium setting. On that basis, you should get around 40 minutes of real-world use, which is enough to tackle most average-sized homes.

Charging times could be better: it takes six hours to fully charge the vacuum cleaner. This means that once you’ve flattened the battery, it’s likely that you’ll have to wait until the next day to use it again.

Measuring 64.5dB on Low and 67.9 on Medium, the Beko VRT94929VI is fairly quiet on its low power settings, but a touch louder at 78.3dB on Turbo mode. Fortunately, you’ll rarely have to result to the maximum mode.

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