Vax Blade 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner review

Price on writing: £180 | Buy now from Amazon

Overall rating: 4.5/5

What we like

Great price
Charges in around 2.5 hours
Powerful suction
Tough dirt brush tool is brilliant on stairs
Battery can be used with other Vax floor cleaning products

What we don’t like

Handle feels pretty heavy to hold
Main brush head can struggle with edge cleaning but crevice tool works well
Small dust capacity

Our verdict

Easy to use, effective on carpets and hard floors and available to buy for less than £200, the Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner is hard to fault. Add in a quick-to-charge battery with a 45-minute runtime and it’s clear to see why this model is one of Vax’s best-selling vacuum cleaners.

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the Blade 4 and it’s quickly become our go-to family vacuum cleaner, replacing our previous model, the Dyson V8, which I loved at first and now resent thanks to a frustratingly short battery life.

It sits at the lower end of the price range for a cordless vac (most of the models that feature in our guide to the best cordless vacuum cleaners are between £200 and £600+) but performance-wise, it packs a punch. And there’s the added bonus of an interchangeable battery that can be used across all Vax floor care products.

It feels a little heavy to hold and the dust capacity is surprisingly small given the weight of the handle but it’s a very competent cleaner that won’t break the bank.

Buy now from Amazon

Buy now from John Lewis

Buy now from Vax

Key specs

Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner: How we tested

Tested over three months in a family home
Used on carpets, stairs, wood floors, tile floors, vinyl flooring, sofas and a messy car
Tested all tools and attachments, including the crevice tool and tough dirt brush

The Vax Blade 4 was used pretty much every day over the course of three months. I used it to tackle day-to-day dirt including post-meal crumbs, muddy hallways and rug refreshes, as well as less frequent tasks like sofa and car clean ups.

Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner: What’s in the box?

Vax Blade 4 cordless vacuum cleaner parts

Handheld unit
Brush floor head
Battery
Charger
Wall mountable docking station
Tool kit including flexi crevice tool, stretch hose and tough dirt brush

Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner: How easy is it to assemble?

Very. The main components slot together with a satisfying click. The battery needs to be fully charged before use but a complete charge takes around 2.5 hours so it’s quite a quick turnaround from unboxing to cleaning.

I bought a Vax Blade four years ago and I absolutely love it, I would replace if it died. Customer services were really good too.

Brand recommended by Mumsnet user, chercez

Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner: How does it feel to hold?

It’s generally lightweight - lighter than the Dyson V11 and Henry Quick in fact. But the handle itself feels quite heavy to hold. It’s a top-heavy design, as with most cordless vacuum cleaners, but the combination of a weighty battery and a bulky handle design makes it feel quite cumbersome to grip onto after around 10 minutes. It’s great for quick clean ups though and I like that you don’t have to keep a trigger button pressed down to operate (as per Dyson cordless vacuum cleaners).

Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner: What’s it like to use day-to-day?

It’s easy to store (in a hall cupboard in our case) and whip out when needed. I found it effective on hard floors, carpets, stairs, rugs and doormats and there’s a handy button that switches the brush bar on and off depending on which surface you’re tackling (on for carpets; off for hard floors). There’s also a boost setting for added oomph. I used this setting regularly even though it’s designed for particularly dirty areas. I found it much more effective when switched on but maybe it’s a telling indication of how filthy our floors are. Yikes. Note that the brush head and boost combo reduces the battery runtime quite considerably.

There’s a four-line battery life indicator that flashes red when there’s less than 20% charge remaining. I’d prefer to see a countdown timer for a more accurate indication of how long’s left but one of the best things about this vacuum cleaner is that it comes with an interchangeable battery that can be used across ALL Vax floor care products. If you have a Vax hard floor cleaner, carpet cleaner or spot cleaner at home (or anything else in the range), you can swap batteries and eek out the battery life of each product while charging a spare battery in the meantime. I found this particularly useful when in full-house cleaning mode, wanting to tick all rooms off the list without having to stop and wait for the battery to charge at any point.

It’s easy to reach dusty spots under furniture units and beds thanks to its slim design, and the crevice tool with its flexible hose came in handy when blitzing dirt from the back of the sofa and in the car.

The floorhead is fitted with LED headlights - a feature I’ve always thought of as a bit of a novelty until you tackle a particularly filthy under-bed area and realise that it's a very useful (and grossly satisfying) way of seeing exactly what’s lurking in poorly lit areas.

The dust canister is simple to remove although I often found myself pulling dust clumps out of it in order to fully empty it rather than being able to tap it to release all the fluff without getting my hands dirty.

How well does the Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 clean carpets?

The Vax features a floorhead that’s specifically designed for carpets and it performs well on rugs and doormats too. As mentioned, I tended to use the boost button in addition to the brush bar when tackling carpeted floors as it cranks things up a notch and meant that I didn’t have to repeatedly go over dusty spots.

One of my favourite things is the tough dirt brush which I found really effective on our carpeted stairs. It features short rigid bristles and gives a satisfying groomed look when done.

The nifty three-stage filtration system reassuringly captures tiny particles, up to 99.8% according to Vax. A win for allergy sufferers.

How well does the Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 deal with hard floors?

It made light work of our dusty wood, tile and vinyl floors. Again, I often found myself hitting the boost button to get the best results. It’s ok at edge cleaning but it’s worth following up with the crevice tool to get right into the corners.

How well does the Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 cope with hair?

We don’t have pets at home but between two adults and two kids, we do seem to shed quite a bit of hair, particularly in bedrooms and bathrooms. The Blade 4 is effective at picking up short and longer strands, as the image above can attest. It’s not fitted with anti hair wrap technology so the brush head does need cleaning quite frequently to ensure it performs well, but it’s a fairly easy process of sliding the brush out and snipping off the hair.

If you have pets, it might be worth considering the Vax Blade 4 Pet & Car Cordless Vacuum Cleaner which we recently reviewed.

Does the Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 offer value for money?

Yes! The Vax Blade ONEPWR 4 is powerful, effective and gets the job done. It also comes with some useful features like an interchangeable battery, LED headlights and a range of nifty tools. The fact that you can pick it up for less than £200 seals the deal for me.

Performance-wise, I think it definitely holds its own against the likes of the Dyson V8 (RRP £330) and the Henry Quick (RRP £299), particularly where battery life is concerned. It also offers a faster charge time than the Tower VL100 Optimum Cordless 3-in-1 Pole Vacuum (RRP £149), our current favourite budget cordless vacuum cleaner.

And while it doesn’t offer Shark’s anti hair wrap technology, it won’t leave you £200-£500+ out of pocket either. For performance and price, we give it a big thumbs up for easy everyday cleaning.

About the author

Rachel Erdos is an Editor at Mumsnet where she commissions, edits and writes content with a focus on product reviews, homeware roundups and family travel.

She’s written buyer’s guides for publications including Expert Reviews and Coach as well as reviews and features for the Guardian, TripSavvy and Visit London.

As a mum of two, she’s always on the lookout for products that make life easier (and cleaning feel like less of a chore) at home and loves putting appliances and gadgets to the test to highlight best buys for families.

Read next: Meet Mumsnet's editorial team

About Mumsnet Reviews

All Mumsnet product reviews are written by real people after extensive research and testing. We work hard to provide honest and independent advice you can trust. Sometimes, we earn revenue through affiliate (click-to-buy) links in our articles. However, we never allow this to influence our coverage.