I fell for the hype, but the Ball Vac hit the donation pile within a week of buying this Ryobi cordless unit.
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My house has allergy sufferers; myself included, although I’m the least affected. And like most people who began cohabitating in the early 2000s, we were caught up in the super vacuum hype, which weirdly occupied a considerable part of the contemporary zeitgeist. I guess you had to be there.
We’ve owned several upright plug-in vacuums that were way overpriced with debatable performance advantages. Then, I bought the Ryobi One+ HP Brushless Stick Vacuum you see here originally to use on our stairs. The plug-in upright was way too heavy and my 2-gallon cordless canister vac I use in the garage would usually end up tumbling down the staircase. Ryobi’s stick vacuum was the perfect size and weight for the job. So much so that it also replaced my canister vac for the car, and my Euro-vac for everything else.
When I bought my own Ryobi vacuum—yes, a guy who regularly gets sample tools spent his own money—I already had some Ryobi batteries so I bought the tool only. I later took advantage of a Black Friday deal and bought larger 4AH batteries primarily for use in the vacuum. The kit that is on sale right now, includes the 4AH battery and a charger, for the price I paid for the tool only. It’s normally $250, but right now the whole thing is on sale for $200.
This vacuum seems to have the same amount of “picking-up-power” as my big upright. It works better on tile and wood floors without question. The 4AH battery provides enough run time to cover a little over a thousand square feet of meticulously vacuumed house—getting behind the couches, along baseboards, under beds, etc. A 2AH battery will get through the interior of my 124 cubic-foot crossover. With the attachments, it easily gets into the hard to reach spots and pulls up the piles of sand and pebbles we seem to constantly track into the car when outdoors.
If I’m cleaning up the garage floor or bench after doing some work, I will still reach for the canister vacuum, but that’s mostly not wanting to load up the “indoor vac” washable filter with greasy, oily, or metallic particles. This will clean up a dry garage mess.
I will acknowledge that this probably isn’t the cheapest stick vacuum you’re going to find. It is one of the least expensive from a reputable tool company and carries the same 3-year warranty as other Ryobi power tools. It is substantially less expensive, I’m talking a third of the cost, of a comparable model from the company that made the upright vacuum I just donated to charity. I’m just hoping the people who got into European-Super-Vacuums 20 years ago don’t turn them into collector’s items in another decade, and I regret giving away the future’s equivalent of a current Mercedes 190E 2.3-16.
