Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 cordless vacuum cleaner review

When cordless convenience is what you’re looking for, plus plenty of power, the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 should definitely be on your list of vacuum cleaner models to consider. But how do you know if it is the one you should have at home? Our review will help you decide if it’s your perfect match. 

I tested a wide selection of the best vacuum cleaners on carpet, parquet, tiles, stairs and upholstery, and challenged them with mud, fluff, light debris and pet hair to give you the lowdown on how efficiently they’ll do the job, how easy they are to use, and how much space they’ll take up in your cupboard. 

The Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 was one of the vacuums I looked at – and here I'll share just how it fared during testing.

Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 Specifications

• Maximum power: 18V
• Cable length: Not applicable
• Dimensions: H114 x W24 x D18.5cm
• Weight: 3.1kg
• Battery life: 45 mins
• Noise: Not available
• Energy rating: no ratings for cordless vacuums
• Dustbag capacity: 0.6 litres

Who will the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 suit?

Households of all sizes, including those with pets to clean up after. Those who prefer an easy to carry, light vac will be pleased, too. 

What is the difference between the Vax Onepwr Blade 4 and the Vax Onepwr Blade 4 Pet & Car?

While the original Vax Blade 4 is great for all types of mess, the Vax Onepwr Blade 4 Pet & Car comes with added accessories to make it easier to clean up after your pet. Included is a motorised brush head that is smaller and can be used to lift pet hair from furniture, stairs and your car upholstery. You can choose to buy it with two batteries for double the battery life (up to 90 minutes).

It also includes a flexible powered hose to help you reach every nook and cranny in your car and home. This is great if you find yourself needing to get the detailing tools into small spots that the main head is too small to reach. 

Finally the brush bars have an antimicrobial coating that means you can clean with confidence, whether cleaning up pet hair, or vacuuming floors in a child's bedroom.

What is the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 like to use?

Getting to grips with operating this cleaner is quick, and once you’re up and running it covers floor areas as well as it deals with nooks and crannies.

Hard flooring, carpets and stairs

The Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 tackled carpet – including a deep pile version – and hard flooring of different types with aplomb in my house, and removed the full gamut of dust, debris, mud, hair and fur.

I would give it the highest marks for its work on carpet; hard flooring required a few more passes for complete clean. But it did achieve top results on both, and wasn’t hard work to push across any type of surface I used it on, even though it does have powerful suction. In fact, Vax says that on boost mode, the Blade 4 outperforms the UK’s top three best-selling vacuums on carpet.

Getting underneath furniture on different floor surfaces was easy because of the design of the cleaner, and it was light enough to make cleaning stairs a breeze, too.

Attachments

A crevice tool with a mount that allows it to travel round on board, and a dusting brush come with this machine. Both function effectively, but I couldn’t have done without the extra in the ProKit 2 toolkit to do all the cleaning jobs around my house I like a vac to be able to do. On the upside, this kit is compatible with all Vax Blade models, and comes free if you buy from Vax directly.

Opt for the kit and you’ll also get the textile tool that cleans upholstery, and whose efficacy on fur I would definitely like to shout about. Also in the box are a dirt tool that attaches to the textile tool, and successfully lifted muck that needed bristles to help it off surfaces. The stretch hose was handy for cleaning the stairs while keeping the handheld close to my body (you don’t want the weight at the end of your arm if you don’t need to, after all). The flexi crevice tool was also a winner for getting right into the edges.

Power and debris removal

My tests include challenging vacuum cleaners with mud and light debris – aka Rice Krispies – together with the normal dust and accumulations of a busy, pet-containing home. On carpet, the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 was a true champ, lifting all the light stuff it was faced with in one efficient move, and doing the same job with mud. I found the on-board lights aided my task, too, as I didn’t have a problem spotting what I needed to tackle.

You need to turn on the brush bar as required, but the button is alongside the power button, so there’s a reminder right in front of you. You can boost suction from the handle as well, should you need to, but I found that even without it, the Vax Blade 4 was highly effective in pulling up everything from my carpet including pet fur, fellow animal owners.

On hard flooring, the machine did a cracking job on mud, cleaning it up without scattering it around. I found that with light debris it did tend to line it up rather than remove it straightaway, but once the cleaner was lifted over the pile, it sucked up the lot without further ado.

The battery of the machine promises a run time of 45 minutes when it’s fully charged, and the latter takes three hours. I definitely felt like I got plenty of cleaning done for my charge, even though I was making the cleaner work hard. As with the Vax ONEPWR Blade 3, you can avail yourself of a second battery (see below) if you find your cleaning takes longer than this and you like to get it done in one fell swoop. 

As I mentioned above, the textile tool – combined with the handheld – was a winner at removing accumulated fur from upholstery, so this is a machine pet owners will like.

Dust bag removal

Dust container easy to remove from the machine? That’s a thumbs-up from me. It was obvious how to take it off, too. Then I just had to hold the container over the bin and use the catch to open it. Vax promises the three-stage filtration captures up to 99.8% of particles down to 0.3 microns in size, improving indoor air quality.

Handy features

As they’re wont to do, long hairs had wrapped themselves around the brushbar after I’d tackled a bedroom carpet with the Vax 4. The good news? I could remove the brushbar from the floorhead, and then used scissors along the built-in groove to cut and get rid of it easily. Hurrah.

Like the Vax ONEPWR Blade 3, the Blade 4 has a ONEPWR battery that also works across the family of appliances including the Blade 3, carpet and upholstery cleaner Vax SpotlessGo, and hard floor cleaner Vax Glide. Thus, if you already have a ONEPWR machine, you can use the one battery between your appliances, and just buy the new machine without battery at a lower price. Equally, though, as mentioned above, you can buy a second battery and avoid downtime in your cleaning chores. You can buy the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 Pet & Car with dual batteries at Vax for just this. 

Even better, when the lithium-ion battery reaches the end of its life – as it will – you don’t have to bid farewell to your vacuum. This can be the case with some cordless models and, where this is the scenario, can mean chucking out a working vac for the sake of this component.

Storing the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4

The Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 comes with a wall mount so you needn’t run the risk of knocking it over wherever you store it. I did find it quite easy not to prop it up sufficiently and had to grab to arrest a fall sometimes, so I’d say you wouldn’t want to go without the mount wherever you store the machine. When it comes to cupboard space, the vac isn’t greedy, so it’s a sound choice for smaller homes or flats, too.

Manoeuvrability

I definitely didn’t suffer supermarket trolley syndrome with the Vax ONEPWR Blade 4. The floorhead rotates easily which meant getting it exactly where I needed it was never a struggle. It was low enough to slide under much of my furniture too, so there was no excuse for not getting right under beds, cabinets and so on.

I also found this vac thoughtfully designed so that carrying up and down stairs was no burden. It’s not heavy and it’s well balanced, also. The handheld wasn’t sapping to move around with either: it weighs just 2kg.

How does it rate online?

On the Vax site, it’s a mostly contented 4.5 out of five from this model’s users. Noted was its suction power and ability to pick up pet hair, the possibility of charging a second battery while the first is in the machine, and the ease with which it can be converted to a handheld. Some users found it too easy to switch off the machine in error while using due to the position of the on/off switch on the handle; they’d also have preferred the machine to stand up on its own when not in use.

How does it rate against similar vacuum cleaners?

The Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 claims top-of-class cleaning results, but the price definitely isn’t top of the cordless stick category. Pay more and you can get longer running times on one battery charge, of course, but the Blade 4 offers the possibility of an additional battery that’ll keep you cleaning. We’d say it stands out from the crowd as great value for the power it offers. 

You can see how we tested a previous model – the Vax Blade 2 Max – against two market leaders from Shark and Dyson in the shoppable video below. This will help you know what to look for when comparing models.

About our review – and our reviewer

Sarah Warwick has specialised in homes and interiors for over 20 years. She was Executive Editor of Ideal Home magazine, and has written for nationals, magazines and websites including Real Homes, Homebuilding & Renovating, Grand Designs, Homes & Gardens, Houzz, The Guardian, House Beautiful and Country Homes & Interiors. 

She put the vacuums through their paces all round the house, on all sorts of dirt and debris, and a variety of flooring and surfaces.

@SMWarwick

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