advantages
- Good cleaning results for a stick vacuum
- Excellent on hard floors
- Foldable handle for easy storage
- Very quiet in use
- Long runtime, 30+ minutes
- Super light and manoeuvrable
disadvantage
- Small trash can, messy to empty
- Bad edge cleaning
- Pretty low suction power
- No hand tools
- Simple ‘wall-wart’ charger
key specifications
- Evaluation price: £99.99
- Cordless, bagless handheld vacuum cleaner
- 0.3 liter capacity
- 30min running time
- Foldable stick design
What is the Morphy Richards Supervac 732008?
If you’re looking for a super lightweight cordless vacuum that offers plenty of cleaning time on a single charge, then the Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 could be the answer. This powerful handheld bagless vacuum features a powered rotating brush bar, 36 volt motor and 30 minute battery life.
With its reasonably sized bin, folding handle for easy storage and constantly rotating brush bar for the entire floor, the Supervac has a lot going for it and, now at discounted prices, could make a great deal if you fancy a cordless machine.
Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 Theme and Accessories
Morphy Richard’s Supervac Stick Cleaner range comprises a range of models with a variety of features and functions, each identified by a model number ending in a Bond-like ’00’ number. Today we have the Supervac 732008, or 008 as we will call it, on the test bench.
The Supervac 008 is a dedicated stick vacuum with no hose or tools to mess around with. It is very compact and the handle can be folded back to almost halve the height for easy storage in the closet. Its floor care properties come from the special floor nozzle with powered rotating brush bar and transparent front panel so you can clearly see if the bar is clogged. The head pivots from the main body, making it very easy to manoeuvre, and the whole cleaner is extremely light, especially considering the powerful 36 volt battery built in.
So the only real accessory is the charger. This is a wall plug charger with a cord that plugs into the body of the machine. A row of bright green LEDs on the front shows you the charge status of the battery. It takes about five hours to fully charge an empty battery. We prefer proper docking stations, and the Supervac range has those too, but the 008 does well when it comes to charging, so that’s not a huge issue. With our brand new sample the battery lasted over 35 minutes which is a great result and gives plenty of cleaning time between charges.
Interestingly, the Supervac is one of the few cleaners we’ve ever tested where the powered brush roller can’t be turned off and runs constantly. We’re not big believers in this idea, as hard floors, especially delicate surfaces like softwood parquet, are at risk of damage if small pieces of stone or gravel get caught in the brushes.
Morphy Richards addresses this problem with an innovative brush design with thick but very soft rows of bristles that allow small dirt particles to be pushed deep into the bristles and thrown into the vacuum airflow. It’s a risky strategy, but if it works, it could prove incredibly effective at removing even fine, ingrained dust from hard floors.
The dust bin isn’t huge at 0.3 liters and isn’t the easiest bin to empty. It detaches easily enough from the main body, but in order to loosen the dirt you have to pull the filter assembly and cyclone out from inside the bin. This can be quite messy, doubly so if you’re doing it via your keyboard while writing a review, experience has shown us. The filter itself consists of two parts and should be brushed or tapped clean each time the container is emptied. Both parts can be washed out if they are really clogged.
Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 – Cleaning
We charged the Supervac 008 for five hours for its regulation and watched the green LED sequence until it was fully charged. It regulates itself and switches to a trickle charge when the battery is full, so that the 008 can remain connected at all times.
When we first turned it on, we could see the brushroll spinning and hear something – but not much. The 008 is spectacularly quiet and you could probably tidy up around a sleeping baby without waking them up. At just 72dB, that’s much, much lower than most corded vacuums and quieter than most cordless vacuums we’ve also tested. This kind of noise level is about the same as your television program during the day, so it’s not intrusive at all.
In front
The Supervac 008’s low weight – not too much over 3 kg on our scales – makes it a nimble companion in the household. The downside to this light weight is that while the head pivots, the cleaner doesn’t have the weight or traction to actually turn around corners and tends to slide straight ahead. This is especially noticeable on hard floors when the wheels slide sideways. However, the super light weight means you can easily push this stick cleaner around the room with the pivoting neck to get into corners and under furniture. The light action is also very easy on the wrist.
After
The 008 cleans relatively well on open carpets. Suction power is average for a cordless vacuum, which is pretty low, but the powered brush bar moves and loosens dirt enough for the cleaner to suck it up. You’ll never see a neat and raised carpet pile or get a really deep clean with this sort of cordless stick vacuum, but the brush bar certainly helps the 008 perform respectably.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case when it gets to your carpet edges. A cursory look at the underside of the 008 reveals that the brush bar and airflow duct are recessed far from the edge of the floor nozzle. The result is very poor edge cleaning with test powder residue visible more than 1 cm from the baseboard edge.
In front
After
Things are a lot better on hard floors, and while the 008 certainly doesn’t have the power to pull dirt out of deep cracks and crevices, the rotating brush bar offers inspired cleaning performance. We use a test mix of oats and grains as the soil for testing hard floors because our carpet-based test mix of baking soda and floor freshening powder tends to stick to tile, laminate and hardwood floors in a fine film that cannot be removed by vacuuming alone.
The 008’s soft brush bar really works wonders here, sweeping up fine dust that even top-notch corded cleaners might leave behind. We risked putting a few small pieces of gravel in the path across a softwood surface and sure enough the soft bristles lifted the debris without also marking the ground.