Hoover Upright Vacuum Cleaner, Red - Upright 300

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My only minor gripe thus far is with the anodised finished on the aluminium tube, which forms the upright that joins the handle to the machine. It’s been so designed to let you use the attachments for specific cleaning duties but suffers as a result. This has already got some scratches on it, just from daily use, so how this will look in time might take the otherwise solid shine off this vacuum. That’s a minor cosmetic point though. It’s a reasonably solid job for the price but the slightly more expensive Dyson Small Ball Allergy did a better job. Although it suffered the same ploughing problems with larger particles on hard floor, it was near perfect when it came to carpet, and was better with flour on all surfaces. If you have a lot of hard floor, the Shark DuoClean with Lift-Away NV702UK has both a brush and a soft roller in its floor head, so can capture anything from hard floor, even Cheerios. To use the hose and attachments, you have to disconnect the hose from the floor head. This is easily unclipped and then also needs to be freed from a retaining clip. Attachments connect on to the end of the hose or, if you want extra reach, you can release the handle from the main body and use it as an extension. It converts into its various functions easily and feels very well built. The main unit is easy to lift away from the floor head with the help of your foot, and the 2m extension hose isn’t as tight and cumbersome as I’ve found on some other rivals, particularly the Dyson Ball Animal. To complicate matters slightly, there’s also a suction regulator. This is a slider that either covers or opens a grille on the top of the floor head, which helps reduce the amount of suction. This is useful if you find the head is hard to move on long-pile carpet or rugs.

If you’re looking for a workhorse of a vacuum cleaner then a corded upright like the Hoover HL5 ought to be an attractive option, as long as it can perform the cleaning jobs it’s supposed to. To find out, I put it through our usual suite of tests. Another downside for me was the machine’s reach under furniture. The bulk of its body means the floorhead doesn’t fit far under a bed, for example, and we all know the pet hair makes its way there as well. Having to swap to using the hose plus attachment or hose, handle and attachment combo makes the job take longer. Hoover Upright 300 Pets on carpets, hard flooring and upholstery Carpets and rugs The Hoover H-Upright 300 is a fairly basic model, with a single rotating brush in its floor head. You can switch this on and off, depending on the surface you’re cleaning; Hoover recommends you switch it off when cleaning floors and deep pile rugs. With the brush switched off the cleaner relies on vacuum suction alone, but performance suffers in this mode when cleaning hard floors. However, it’s worth noting that you don’t get the extra bit of agitation for more stubborn dirt that you get from a soft roller on vacuums such as the Shark DuoClean with Lift-Away NV702UK. It isn’t a particularly long wand, although I still had just enough reach to get to the top of the rafters in my test lab.

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At least the dust collection bin is easy to remove and empty. A handle and thumb button on the top release it from the main unit, while a second button near the base opens a trap door to let the contents drop out. Plus, all the filters can be rinsed in clean running water. Hoover HL5 review: How well does it clean? On the brush bar is a manual slider: keep it closed for more suction on hard floors; or open to make the cleaner easier to push on carpet. There’s a tendency for vacuum cleaner manufacturers to make ever more expensive and complicated cleaners. The Hoover H-Upright 300 offers a tonic to that formula: it’s a cheaper, lighter upright cleaner that gets all of the basics right. The Hoover is reasonably light for a corded model, weighing just 4.94kg. This is lighter than its similarly priced competitors, with the Shark DuoClean with Lift-Away NV702UK weighing 5.25kg and the Dyson Small Ball Allergy a hefty 6.9kg. It’s easier to carry around but isn’t small, standing at over a metre tall (1,147 x 300 x 320mm). The mains cord is 8.1m long and there’s a built-in hose for connecting the attachments to, which stretches to 2m. There are three control buttons at knee height on the main unit, which is slightly awkward if you’re tall, and a three-way switch on the handle. The buttons switch the device on and off, flip it between its carpet and hard floor modes, and release the extension wand. The switch on the handle controls the suction power between Max, Min and somewhere between the two.

However, in our other tests it performed exceptionally well, proving itself exemplary at carpet cleaning and gathering smaller particles from hard floor. Hoover could have been slightly more generous with the attachments, and more easily accessible controls would be high on my wishlist of improvements. However, it’s good value for money for what you get. There’s a reason upright vacuum cleaners are such a popular choice – this classic style does it all, with a lightweight, easy-to-manoeuvre design and exceptional cleaning power. From the HL5 to the best-selling Upright 300, there’s an upright vacuum for everyone. Our upright vacuum cleaners promise high-performance cleaning on all floor types. Whether you want to deep clean your carpet or tidy a hardwood floor, a versatile stand up Hoover will get the job done. Our upright vacuums also come with push and lift capabilities and instant release wands, allowing portability for all your above-floor cleaning needs, such as sofas and stairs. We know how frustrating it can be to get hair caught in your vacuum, which is why we’ve introduced ANTI-TWIST™ technology to our upright vacuums. ANTI-TWIST™ means you don’t need to worry about hair getting tangled; our tech automatically removed it from the brushbar. One other thing to note is that the turbine-drive doesn’t have the same anti-tangle system as the floor head. As a result, I found it started collecting hair almost immediately. And it’s a bit fiddly to clean out, too, because removing the brush bar involves freeing it from its belt drive.

The Hoover H-Upright 300 cleans well and won’t break the bank, but it’s better on carpet than hard floor

The Hoover Upright Pet Vacuum Cleaner with Anti-Twist & Push&Lift HL5 is an impressive upright vacuum but it isn’t perfect. It isn’t particularly good at collecting large particles from hard floor. Approaching the mess from different angles and giving the H-Upright 300 a few more sweeps soon collected most of the mess, with just the crevice tool needed for the tiny particles remaining right at the edge. I didn’t really want to attempt a conversation when I was vacuuming with the Hoover Upright 300 Pets, and I especially didn’t want to when I was using the motorised mini turbo brush – the pet hair tool. Bear this in mind if your animal housemates are sensitive to loud noise.

Once you’ve finished cleaning, the bin lifts out of the cleaner, and you can flip open the bottom to empty dirt quite easily. There’s one filter here and a another in the cleaner, both of which should be cleaned with water to maintain maximum suction. Performance While the Hoover H-Upright 300 Pets might appear to be just another vacuum cleaner with a power cable I think Hoover has done a great job with this model. It takes mere seconds to pull out of the box, something helped by its weight of just 5.2kg. Most of it has been put together for you, so after scrutinizing the manual for a couple more seconds the design is suitably simple that you can be powering up in about, well, two minutes. I’ve got no complaints so far about the performance of the Hoover H-Upright 300 Pets, which further appeals thanks to its washable H13 HEPA filter that traps those pesky allergens. Interestingly, the power button is part of the main body of the vacuum, which you reach down to press. It’s a variation on having a power button on the handle, but at least there’s no turning it off by accident mid-vacuum. The collection bin has a generous 1.5-litre capacity and is easily released from the chassis for emptying. It also contains the filters, which are washable in water and rated to the HEPA H13 standard.

An affordable upright vacuum cleaner that picks up anything and everything, but you might have to resort to the tools beyond the floor head

READ NEXT: These are the best robot vacuum cleaners to buy today Hoover H-Upright 300 review: Should I buy it? A more difficult test is my carpet tile test, where I sprinkle flour right up to the skirting board. With the H-Upright 300 set to hard floor mode, it left a trace amount of dust behind, as you can see from the images below. The floor head has anti-tangle tech, which stops the brush roller getting clogged up with long hair. During testing I found no hair tangles on the floor head, even after cleaning around the vanity stations of long-haired family members. First, the model I reviewed doesn’t come with many accessories. I’d recommend you opt for the Pet model, which comes with a better attachment for handheld jobs and doesn’t cost much more.

Take it from me, as a veteran vacuum cleaner unboxer, that some are a tad time-consuming. Lots of parts wrapped in plastic and assembly instructions with pictures only. This vacuum, on the other hand, only needed its handle slotting in and the two attachments to be put in their place on the machine and it was ready to go. Tools on board and therefore always to hand is great, and also scoring points from me is the fact that the instructions have clear words as well as drawings. And much as I like cordless machines, being able to plug in and start rather than wait for a battery to charge has a lot to be said for it. The vacuum can operate in a number of modes. There’s the basic upright mode, with the floor head, vacuum unit, wand and handle all connected together. Alternatively, each element can be detached and used interchangeably. I was pleasantly surprised by how it performed in the same test on short-pile carpet, however. Here, the angle of the base of the floor head and the powerful suction combined to compress the Cheerios into the carpet enough for the floor head to climb over them and, once underneath, they didn’t stand a chance. A single pass left a few crumbs behind but not enough to register as a full gram on my kitchen scales. In front of the power button there’s another that lets you engage or disengage the brush in the cleaning head. This can be used in conjunction with the white slider switch on the top of the cleaning head, which is marked as Carpet one way and Hard Floor the other. Simply slide it across to change the cleaning mode, and disengage the spinning brushes if you’re cleaning something like a laminate floor. Initially I’d tend to forget to do this, but practice makes perfect.In general use I found the Hoover manoeuvrable and able to reach reasonably far under low furniture, and front-mounted LED lighting helps you see where problem areas lurk, even if they’re well shaded. The only complaint I have is the control buttons are down on the main unit, which left me having to reach down awkwardly to switch between carpet and hard floor modes and to turn the vacuum on or off. The collection bin can hold 1.4L of dust and debris. That’s slightly less than the 1.8L of the Dyson Ball Animal but still beats the capacity of most cordless models, including the Shark ICZ300UKT cordless upright, which only holds 0.6 litres.