One-minute review
Cordless vacuum cleaners are a dime a dozen, ranging from the super-affordable to the tech-heavy offerings such as those from Dyson. The Easine G80 is a budget-friendly option that is easy to maneuver and has some interesting features that are useful to have on a cordless vacuum.
Its downfall however, is with its inability to perform the very task it was designed for – cleaning. The suction power on the G80 isn’t quite enough to leave your floors spotless, even when used on its max setting. This means that you’ll be going over areas a few times to pick up all the dirt, and even when you think you’ve got it all – especially on carpets – you’ll find some things have been missed.
The Easine G80 is not a recommendation for your daily cleaning needs. If you wanted something that is only good for cleaning hardwood floors, then this just might be something to look at. But for serious suction power to clean carpets, sofa crevices, or even you car, there’s far more powerful options that are worth the investment.
Price and availability
The Easine G80 is available on Amazon for $159.99 (around £115; AUD$210).
Design
The G80 looks like any other cordless stick vacuum on the market. Its silver, white, and orange design is certainly eye-catching, and there’s both a floor stand as well as wall mount in the box so you can choose how best you want to store or show off your cleaning companion.
The vacuum itself features a simple panel at the top with various indicator lights. There’s one to denote if the cleaning rollers are stuck, what the suction power setting is, and the approximate battery charge.
The G80 has a simple switch on the top which lets you choose either the Auto or Max suction mode. There’s no trigger to hold down in order to keep the vacuum running, which some users might prefer. The actual dust bin is perpendicular to the stick, but doesn’t feel too heavy even after significant use.
In the box you’ll get a couple of cleaning attachments, mainly the large motorized swivel head that’s armed with a soft roller by default. This can be swapped out for a bristle head if you want to lift dirt out of carpets, and there’s a small lever that releases the roller accordingly. There are also LED lights which shine onto the floor while you clean, helping to illuminate hard to see areas such as under a bed or couch.
There’s also a small side brush attached to the cleaning head, which is supposed to help when cleaning corners and along edges. This is something we’ve only usually seen on robot vacuums, so it’s an interesting feature to have on a cordless vacuum.
Apart from the swivel head, there’s also a small brush attachment which can be adjusted to extend or retract its bristles, as well as a crevice tool for vacuuming up wall corners or between sofa cushions.
Performance
While the Easine G80 touts plenty of suction power on the box, the reality is that it doesn’t clean as well as it should. We frequently found ourselves going over tiled areas several time to pick up dust and bits of hair, even with the vacuum set at max power. Since the side brush is only on one side of the cleaning head, you have to back-track a certain area to be able to use it to pick up any leftover dirt. It doesn’t spin fast enough to throw dirt into the path of the vacuum, nor are the bristles long enough. It may have seemed like a good idea on paper, but in practice it has very little effect.
On carpet, the vacuum won’t do well with the roller brush at all, so you will have to swap out for the bristle roller if you want to really pick up dirt that’s stuck in your carpet – even low-pile ones. The ‘Auto’ mode offers very little suction power, and when placed on carpet doesn’t automatically boost the suction, so we’re really wondering what the mode really does.
You’ll want to be ready to sit and untangle any loose threads or hair that will inadvertently get stuck in the bristle roller. There are also small plastic wheels underneath the roller head which don’t glide smoothly on tiles, making a fairly loud clattering noise instead as you move.
The G80 features washable filters, and you’re going to want to clean and wash these quite regularly. After just a few uses in our test apartment, we noticed a rather unpleasant smell emanating from the G80, mostly due to the fact that exhaust air blows right out the sides in a 180-degree pattern. After one particular cleaning cycle, we could not stop sneezing, owing to the fact that the vacuum had probably dispersed small dust particles in the air while we were cleaning.
The release mechanism for the bin also doesn’t quite properly empty it – many times in our trial we had to tap the side of the vacuum quite vigorously in order to dislodge clumps of dust that had built up near the filters. This of course released small clouds of dust into the air, which is not what you want to deal with when cleaning a vacuum.
Battery-wise you can get about 30-40 minutes on the Auto mode, and about 25 minutes at Max mode. Recharging can take around 3 hours to finish, so you’ll need to plan accordingly if you’ve got a large space to clean up.
Should I buy the Easine G80?
Buy it if…
You want a very simple vacuum cleaner
The Easine G80 comes with some basic attachments, and is good for cleaning just a single room or very small space.
Don’t buy it if..
You actually want to clean your house
The suction power on the Easine G80 is very average, and you’re going to spend more time repeating areas you’ve cleaned just to get all of the dirt up.
You have allergies
This vacuum will start to smell if not cleaned immediately, and kicks up an equal amount of dust while it cleans.
