Dyson V8 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Dyson hopes this will be your next vacuum cleaner.

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Dyson’s got a new version of its cordless vacuum cleaner, and hopes the V8 will convince those living in smaller abodes to ditch the bulky dirt-suckers of old, in favour of its trendy, stalk-like cleaning machines.

It’s not cheap though, starting at £450 or $600. (Australian prices are yet to be announced, but £450 converts to around AU$840.) It goes on sale in the UK today and in the US in August.

Harder, better, faster, quieter

The new model replaces 2014’s Dyson V6, and has a similar look to its predecessor, but boasts a number of improvements. The battery will now last up to 40 minutes, Dyson says, a significant improvement on the V6’s 20 minutes. That still doesn’t sound like a lot of battery, but should be plenty to give your whole home a once-over before you return the V8 to a power source.

The V8 is more powerful than the last model, but makes less noise.

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Suction power itself has been boosted too, while the noise the vacuum makes has been reduced. This improvement is hard to measure (though Dyson boasts a reduction of 50 percent), but having heard the V8 running, it’s more of a high, airy whine than a jet-engine roar. I suspect you’d be able to conduct a conversation while it was going.

New dirt mechanism

A more understated — by in my opinion, far more valuable — addition is a new mechanism for emptying the V8’s drum. Anyone who’s used a Dyson vacuum cleaner will know that sometimes, opening the bottom of the plastic dirt-collection cylinder and emptying the collected mess means getting your fingers involved, reaching in to the drum itself to fish out chunks of dust and hair that have become wedged up against the filter.

A new dirt ejection method is one of the V8’s new features.

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When you click the button to empty the V8, however, the entire filter lifts out of the drum, so there’s nothing for dirt to get stuck against. It remains to be seen how big an improvement this is in practice, but in theory at least this sounds like a much better way of ditching the dirt. The drum’s capacity has also been beefed up from that of the V6.

The V8 weighs a mere 2.6 kg (5.7 pounds), and Dyson’s tried to position components closer to your hand, so that it’s easier to lift the vacuum up and clean above you. If your curtains (or ceiling) could use a clean, you may appreciate that centre-of-gravity consideration.

Pricey cleaning tech

This is a cleaning head for hard floors. It comes with the pricer ‘Absolute’ model.

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All those improvements will take a toll on your bank balance. The V8 is on sale today in the UK in two versions. The “Animal” version costs £450, while the even pricier “Absolute” model costs £500, but comes with the soft roller cleaner head for hard floors that you can see above. When in goes on sale in the US (from Dyson.com in August and other stores in September), it’ll replace the V6 Absolute at $600, with further details to come.

That’s a lot of cash to splash on a vacuum cleaner, so stay tuned for the full review, where we’ll see if the V8 justifies its significant price tag.