Dyson has carved out a major position in the home tech arena. Though the name appears in categories from air purification to beauty, its expertise is the most prominent in vacuums.
The brand's genesis stems from the same frustrations we've all had with one vacuum cleaner or another. In the early '90s, a British engineer — who was fed up with his current clunky, clogged vacuum — set out to create a vacuum that's not a chore in itself to use.
Enter an ergonomic design, funky colors, intense cyclonic suction, meticulous filtration, and an ingenious bagless dirt collection system … and so the Dyson vacuum was born. It's the kind of suction power that's so satisfying to wield, it seems unfair to let a robot vacuum take all the credit.
Originally, Dyson's claim to fame was its upright vacuum, eventually expanding into canister vacs as well. Both were built around The Ball: a rolling sphere that allows the vacuum to curve around furniture and tricky obstacles with a flick of the wrist. They had such impressive suction and were so tough on pet hair that people put up with the fact that they were also heavy and hard to store.
Dyson officially cut that cord in 2018, when James Dyson announced that the company would halt production of corded vacuums to focus on the less cumbersome It Girl, the cordless stick vacuum.
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The cordless stick vacuum family, however, is updated so often that it's hard to keep up with which models do what. The deciding factors will narrow down to weight, suction power (the higher the suction, the better performance on pet hair and carpet), the number of attachments, battery life, and new tech like lasers — and, of course, how much you can justify spending on a vacuum.
We'll point out which Dyson stick vacuums between V7 and V15 are best for each budget, plus dive into differences compared to models that ditch V-number titles, like the Outsize series. While the guide below does include two non-stick models because they are still sold at some retailers, those product lines won't be expanded on.
Here are our picks for the best Dyson vacuums:
