So one of the best things about the design of the Bissell Air Ram is its shape. By having the motor and battery on the cleaner head it means there is very little weight on the handle, which means it’s a lot less tiring on the arm than traditional cordless vacuums. Bissell says its only one pound on your arm during vacuuming, this is compared to an average of 3 to 5 pounds with most cordless vacuums. It really does make a difference especially if you are trying to vacuum large areas.
Also as a result of its shape it stands upright easily for storage, which again is a big problem with traditional cordless vacuums where you are always looking for a good place to set it down while cleaning a house.
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Another huge pro for the Bissell air ram is its carpet deep cleaning ability. Cordless vacuums on average don’t deep clean carpets well. In fact I have only tested one cordless vacuum (the very expensive Dyson V10) that got a 100% our deep clean test where we rub 100 grams of sand into a medium pile carpet and weigh the dust bins before and after. But the Bissell Air Ram also scored a perfect 100% in this test.
This is most likely the result of two things, its brush roll being particularly powerful, and it well designed gate on the front that creates a good seal on the back pull of the vacuum.
Which brings us the next pro, its pickup ability. On carpet it picked up all the debris from fine debris to pet hair to large debris with no issues, but the real surprise was with its hard floor performance.
It did really well with all types of debris like sand which is difficult for some vacuums, and it had sufficient airflow for pet hair and other debris, but the large debris performance was especially notable. It rare for vacuums of any type to be able to pick up large debris (froot loops in this case) on hard floors but the large self adjusting gate on the front really is well designed. On the forward push it opens up and then it closes to make a seal on the backward pull.
You can see in the crevice pickup test that it doesn’t pick up much on the forward push but when pulling it back it picked up all the debris in both the 1/8” and ¼” crevices, which is really good.
Its battery life is also a major pro,
We tested it at 42 minutes which is longer than any other cordless vacuum I have tested except for the Dyson V10, Unlike the V10 though its battery is removable and replacements or extras are available online.
It has a lot of interesting and useful features like the huge bank of bright LED lights. If you haven’t vacuumed with LED lights before you will be surprised at how much you use to miss even in well lit rooms.
Its dust bin is pretty big for a cordless at 0.6 liters larger than the Dyson V8 but not the V10 and it has a feature where you pull a lever to get any stuck debris from the back of the unit which is pretty cool.
Its pretty maneuverable with a swivel that is very smooth and a lower than average profile that makes getting under things easy.
Before we move on to the cons I will mention the power results because its not really a pro or a con.
We tested the airflow at 27 cfm at the cleaner head which is typical of cordless vacuums in its price range, yes the Dyson V8 and V10 have more power on high power, albeit with incredibly reduced battery life, but as we have seen, the mechnics of the Bissell Airram make 27 cfm more than enough, even exceeding the Dyson V8 with Deep cleaning on its high power setting.