The pandemic changed our lives in many ways. Some of us took up new hobbies, and some went deep into fitness. Well, I turned to deep cleaning and reorganising my house. It’s now become a fairly regular weekend exercise. Nearly every alternate weekend is now spent taking my Dyson vacuum cleaner and going into every nook and corner as I get rid of dog hair– which is everywhere in our house, dust, and bits of food that my toddler has generously sprinkled everywhere. So when Philips asked if I would review their new , I agreed. After all, it has one thing my Dyson does not: a mop attachment. Here’s my review after having used it for nearly two weeks.

The Philips SpeedPro comes in three models so do keep in mind which one you are picking before you hit buy. The model that I got sent for review is FC6728, which has the regular attachment with the LED light in the nozzle and the mop attachment as well. There are other models without the mop attachment.

Philips is promising this will last 50 minutes at full charge– which is really the only drawback of most of these handheld cleaners. This is an integrated handheld unit where the crevice tool and brush are attached to the longer attachment rod. You can also remove this rod and directly vacuum in sofas, etc if needed, as I tried during my usage.

Philips is claiming it will remove “up to 98% of dust and dirt in each stroke”. This one has a completely removable dust bucket to let you easily empty out the contents. The filter inside is also washable, similar to the Dyson. Philips is recommending that you wash the filter every two weeks or so. I would say this is reasonable advice to give for most Indian homes. With my Dyson, I was told I only need to wash it every month, but I’ve found the machine warning me to change the filter at much shorter intervals.

The vacuum cleaner comes with two-speed modes, though you really do not need to keep it at maximum when cleaning out your home. It did not get too warm when I used at maximum for too long. The charging time is around 5 hours. There’s also a water tank in the mop attachment where you can add water and clear detergent to mop the floor. The water tank can be removed entirely and then you can use the rest of the attachment to clean carpets as well.

Philips is also giving an extra microfiber pad, which is attached to the bottom of the mop attachment. This can be removed and cleaned after each mopping session.

First, setting up the vacuum cleaner wasn’t a problem. Philips is also providing an attachment to ensure this can be fixed to the wall. The functions are easily understood, especially once you go through the guide. My one complaint about the guide: Philips needs to write out the instructions. This pictorial representation might work for some people, but a text version of the instructions would also help. At least, I would have preferred it.

The vacuum cleaner itself is impressive. The regular attachment’s LED lights — the one you use on floors, under your beds, etc — is a game changer. In my house, they would show me all the places which were dirty, covered with tracers of dog hair, even when they appeared to be clean to the naked eye. Little specks of dust and food, which one might ordinarily miss were visible. I could see the dust bucket filling up quickly as I pushed the cleaner under my beds, behind the fridge—an area that had not been cleaned for eternity it seemed. The results left me impressed.

Sadly, the Philips has been to some truly dark places in my house. For example, in the area that separates the kitchen floor and my modular kitchen cabinets— which I did not know could be cleaned or rather accessed at all. Yes, it cleaned an area which was covered by cobwebs, dust and god knows what else. The fact that the cleaner was able to get a large chunk of it out was impressive. Though I must admit, in just under five minutes, the bucket was full and we had to switch to a regular broom, mostly because this space needed a lot more intervention.

The mop attachment was also great and did the job of mopping my living room, guest bedroom and the kitchen in quick ten minutes. It is a convenient way of mopping for sure. You can press down on one side of the mop for it to release water on the floor as it cleans. I was a little unsure whether it really cleaned anything, but when I removed the microfiber pad at the bottom to wash, it was clear that even the mop had pulled up a lot of dust.

I also used the cleaner in the crevices of my sofa — again filled with dog hair and found it was adequate in removing most of it. One aspect where I would have wanted to test it was its performance on carpets, but right now there are none being used in my house.

Do keep in mind that when using the regular attachment there should be no water on the floor. Only the mop attachment should be used in such scenarios. I also noticed that when there are longer wires or threads or even a lot of hair in a room, then they do get stuck to the regular attachment, so be careful about that. The attachment does require some cleaning as well.

As for the battery, it lasted around an hour or so (I was not always running at maximum), when I was cleaning my three-bedroom house. Again the battery life might be lower, if you are constantly running the cleaner at maximum speed. But I noticed that even with one battery point showing, I was able to use it for a good 10-15 minutes and the cleaner did not die on me.

No doubt cordless vacuum cleaners cost more for convenience. This one is priced at Rs 35,999 on the Philips website right now, which puts it closer to the Dyson V10 in terms of price. But there’s no doubt this is a handy tool which will upgrade the way you clean your home. It will appeal to folks in India given the mop tool– which my Dyson does not have.

If you are obsessed with keeping your home clean and live in an apartment, then this is ideal. In my view, this is especially great if you have a pet at home. You might not realise it, but there is dog hair everywhere and this is a good way of ensuring you do a quick clean up. I just wish Philips had some more dedicated attachments to offer given the Dyson has so many to offer — which I think is the biggest drawback right now.

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Shruti DhapolaAssistant Editor at Indianexpress.com and looks after the Indian Expre... read more