Verdict

Pros

• Good cleaning results for a stick vac
• Excellent on hard floors
• Fold down handle for easy storage
• Very quiet in use
• Long run time, 30+ minutes
• Super light and manoeuvrable

Cons

• Small-ish bin, messy to empty
• Poor edge cleaning
• Fairly low suction power
• No hand tools
• Basic ‘wall-wart’ charger

What is the Morphy Richards Supervac 732008?

If you are looking for a super lightweight cordless vacuum cleaner with plenty of cleaning time on a single charge, then the Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 could be the answer. This potent bagless stick vac features a powered rotating brush bar, 36volt motor and a 30-minute battery run time.

With its reasonable size bin, folding handle for easy storage and constantly rotating all-floor brush bar, the Supervac has plenty to like and, now at discounted prices, might make a great deal if you fancy a cordless machine.

Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 – Design and Accessories

Morphy Richard’s Supervac stick cleaner range spans a number of models with a variety of features and functions, each distinguished by a model number ending in a Bond-esque ‘00’ number. On the test bench today we have the Supervac 732008, or 008 as we shall call it.

The Supervac 008 is very much a dedicated stick vacuum cleaner with no hose or tools to confuse the issue. It’s very compact and the handle can be folded backwards to almost halve the height for easy cupboard storage. Its floorcare credentials come from the dedicated floorhead with powered rotating brush bar and transparent front panel so you can clearly see if the bar is getting clogged up. The head pivots from the main body making it very easy to manoeuvre and the whole cleaner is supremely light, especially considering its potent 36volt battery built in.

So the only real accessory is the charger. This is a wall plug charger with a fly lead that plugs into the body of the machine. A bright green row of LEDs on the front gives you an indication of battery charge level. Charging a flat battery to full takes about five hours. We prefer proper docking stations, and the Supervac series has those too, but the 008 stands up on its own well when being charged so it’s not a major issue. With our factory fresh sample the battery lasted over 35 minutes, which is a great result and offers plenty of cleaning time between charges.

Interestingly, the Supervac is one of the few cleaners we have ever tested that the powered brush bar cannot be turned off and runs constantly. We are not great fans of this idea as when it comes to hard floors, particularly easily damaged surfaces such as softwood parquet, there is a danger of damage if small bits of stone or gravel get caught up in the brushes.

Morphy Richards addresses this concern with an innovative brush construction featuring thick yet very soft rows of bristles that allow small bits of debris to be pushed deep into the bristles and spun off into the vacuum air flow. It’s a high-risk strategy but, if it works, could prove incredibly effective at cleaning even fine, stuck-down dust from hard floors.

The dust canister is not huge at 0.3 litres and is not the slickest of bins to empty. It unclips from the main body easy enough but to release the dirt you have to pull out the filter assembly and cyclone from inside the bin. This can be pretty messy, doubly so when you do it over your keyboard while writing a review, experience has shown us. The filter itself is in two parts and should be brushed or tapped clean each time you empty the bin. Both parts can be washed out when they get really blocked up.

Morphy Richards Supervac 732008 – Cleaning

We charged up the Supervac 008 for its regulation five hours, watching the green LEDs sequence until it is fully charged. It is self-regulating and changes to a trickle charge when the battery is full, so the 008 can be left plugged in all the time.

On the first trial switch on we could see the brush bar spinning and hear something – but not a lot. The 008 is spectacularly quiet and you could probably clean up around a sleeping baby without waking them. At just 72dB that is much, much lower than most mains powered vacuum cleaners and quieter than the majority of cordless ones we have tested too. That sort of noise level is about same as your TV watching daytime programme, so really not intrusive at all.

Before

The Supervac 008’s diminutive weight – not too much over 3kg on our scales – makes it a nippy mover around the home. The flip side of that low weight is that while the head pivots, the cleaner hasn’t got the weight or traction to actually turn around corners and tends to slide straight on. This is particularly noticeable on hard floors when the wheels slide sideways. However, the super light weight means you can easily hustle this stick cleaner around the room using the pivoting neck to get into corners and under furniture. The light action is very easy on the wrist too.

After

Out on open carpet the 008 cleans relatively well. The suction power is average for a cordless stick vac, which is fairly low, but the powered brush bar agitates and loosens dirt enough for the cleaner to suck it up. You are never going to see groomed and raised carpet pile or get really deep down cleaning with this sort of cordless stick vacuum, but the brush bar certainly helps the 008 to turn in a respectable performance.

Sadly that is not the case when it gets to your carpet edges. A cursory look at the underside of the 008 reveals that the brush bar and man air-flow channel are inset a long way from the edge of the floorhead. The result is very poor edge cleaning with residual test powder showing over 1cm out from the skirting board edge.

Before

After

Things are much improved on hard floors and while the 008 certainly doesn’t have the power to draw debris from deep cracks and crevices, the rotating brush bar gives an inspired cleaning performance. We use a test mix of oats and grains as debris for testing hard floors as our carpet based test mix of baking powder and floor freshening powder tends to stick to tiles, laminate and parquet in a fine film that cannot be removed by suction alone.

The 008’s soft brush bar really works wonders here, sweeping up fine dust that even top-spec corded cleaners might leave behind. We risked placing a couple of small bits of gravel in the way over a softwood surface and, sure enough, the soft bristles lifted the debris without marking the floor too.