So The Dyson V11 currently comes in two different settings in the US, the v11 Torque Drive, which can a few in blue or gold and the V11 Animal which is purple.
Besides the colour and price The change between the Torque Drive and the Animal version is that while the torque drive has the LCD screen which we’ll discuss at a later time, the Animal only has an LED screen, and the truth is the LED panel is just lights and a button, though it has the same features as the LCD except it does not expose the remaining battery life numbers like the LCD does, which again we’ll discuss at a later time.
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The other change is that the Animal has one less tool, that is it does not include the mini soft dusting brush, which is no big loss. Other than that everything i’ll discuss in this review will use to both the Torque and the Animal versions.
Notably absent in the US market is the Absolute version, which seems to only be available in the UK for now. I did call Dyson on this point, and it sounded like there weren’t any plans to provide the Absolute version in US any time soon. The only change between the Absolute and the Torque Drive version is that the Absolute offers a soft roller or “fluffy” cleaner head as well as the torque drive head.
They’ve all the same colour settings and everything else is all the same so technically you could just buy a soft roller separately, and essiciatlly have an Absolute version, but i’ll discuss why I do not think that is important at a later time on.
I should also mention that you can use the soft roller and other tools from the V10 version on the V11 because not only are they all the same connector size but they’re all the same wattage, though the soft roller from the V8 and earlier version aren’t recommended to use because they’re different wattages.
So lets look at the functions and accessories.
The V11 Torque and Absolute have this cool new LCD screen where you can select between low medium and high power as well as auto. It also shows the estimated battery life you’ve left, and its pretty clever, that number modifications whenever you transform the power mode or transform the attachment, because the battery life if vastly different between say making use of a suction attachment and a motorized tool.
The screen also displays things like charge percentage and it has alerts like when its time to transform the filter.
Another new feature is the high torque cleaner head, which has a dynamic load sensor which can tell if you’re vacuuming hard floors or carpets, and for those who have it in auto mode it boosts the suction when it senses carpet for a better deep clean.
I tested this with several types of carpet depths and found it work really well, also to my earlier point find how the battery life numbers transform when the suction improves.
As far as accessories, it’ll probably depend on where you buy it from but with mine I so clearly got the torque drive head, the mini motorized brush which is a good tools made for stairs and furniture, or car cleaning, the combo tool which I still think is among the best dusting brushes available on the market, a few of the more ordinary tools and the docking staion. Several new tools to me was the so called “stubborn dirt brush” which has stiffer bristles, and the tools clip where you can clip it to the wand and carry two tools on board.
Ok so with all that out of the way lets discuss the tests.
We started with a basic suction test, most likely Dyson claims the V11 has twice the suction of any other wire free vacuum cleaner, and indeed we found its suction to be off the charts at 111 inches of water lift, which is a huge number even for a corded vacuum cleaner let alone a wire free vacuum cleaner which tend to be less powerful. In the past this the Dyson V10 had the many suction of any wire free vacuum cleaner that I know of but it appearances like Dyson has moved the goalpost again with the V11.
We also measured its flow of air in a few areas and on all the power settings and found that on average it has about 32% more flow of air than the V10 which we tested at all the same time and in all the same test conditions. In bag your wondering that makes the V11 the many powerful wire free vacuum cleaner i’ve ever seen by a pretty important margin.