Karcher VC6300 vacuum cleaner review

It might be a job we hate, but it's something that we all have to do from time to time

2 April 2006 0:45 GMT / By Stuart Miles

It might be a job we hate, but it's something that we all have to do from time to time. Karcher believe it has the "new generation of cleaners" but can it really beat the mighty king - Dyson? We get to doing the housework and find out.

Get it out of the box and you'll immediately see that this is a tubby unit with a large hose rather than an upright model. We've never fully appreciated the difference between the two apart from knowing that they both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

From a mobility point of view the Karcher VC6300 is fairly easy to move around, the wheels go in all directions and itï¿½s a case of giving it a yank in the right direction and on both carpet and tiles it gave us no problem.

The accompanying expanding hose comes with all the usual attachments, expect that it has a battery powered remote control on the top of its extending pole. A strange option we have to admit and Karcher say this to adjust the power of the vacuum cleaner so you can vacuum rugs without stucking them up.

In theory this sounds like a great idea, however in practice the machine is so lacklustre in its sucking abilities that we never needed to turn it down.

In our tests we found the ï¿½249 vacuum cleaner just not up to the job when it came to cleaning up pet hairs and general dirt. And against Dyson's DC15 - the one with the ball - the cleaning took about three times longer. If that wasn't a reason not to get this the fact that the Dyson still managed to pick up dirt after we had "supposedly" hoovered and you realise that sucking power really isn't up to scratch.

When we questioned Karcher about the lack of ability to pick up pet hair we were told that there is an optional pet attachment priced at ï¿½34.99 is available, but either way we just longed for more power.

Verdict

The company may profess to have the "new generation of cleaners" but in our tests against our dirty floor it didn't muster too much.

The remote control on the handle sounds like a good idea, but in reality we had it on full power to try and pick up the dirt.

Against pet hair without the optional extra it proved pointless and compared to the Dyson the cleaning took over three times longer to do.

One to avoid.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Karcher
Price as reviewed: £249
The good: Small and compact, power remote on handle
The bad: Not a great sucker, pet owners will have to buy an optional pet hair accessory
Quick verdict: The company may profess to have the
Score