Verdict

Grand cleaning results, a Lift-Out mode and attractive price make the H-Lift 700 a superb deal all-round. This model tackled our dirt tests with ease, working well on carpet and hard floors, making short work of our pet hair test, too. With the Lift-Out mode providing flexibility, this cylinder cleaner turns into a handheld model that's ideal for cleaning stairs or hard to reach areas.

Pros

• Great animal hair cleaning
• Good results across carpets and hard-floor
• Use as an upright, stick or lift away
• Plenty of tools with onboard storage
• Easy to empty and clean out

Cons

• Heavy on arm
• So-so turbo tool

The Hoover H-Lift 700 is the company’s first mains-powered bagless upright vacuum that offers three ways of use; upright, lift out or stick. It has a wide floorhead, powerful rotating brush bar on carpet mode, and a large capacity bin that’s easily emptied. The hose and cable are supersized, making hard-to-reach areas a breeze to clean – but it certainly isn’t lightweight.

This is an impressive vacuum that produces great cleaning results across both carpets and hard flooring. The different configurations make it versatile and the onboard tool storage and generous reach are winning features. It’s a bit weighty on the arm in full upright mode, and the turbo tool isn’t the best. However, these are minor caveats to what is otherwise a great-value and very effective vacuum cleaner.

Hoover H-Lift 700 – What you need to know

• General vacuuming – Easy to use, versatile, feels lighter on hard floors and excellent edge cleaning
• Carpet test – Powerful suction gave great results over different carpeted areas around the house
• Hard floor test – One slow pass over the oats gave us 99.9% pick-up, which is impressive
• Pet hair pick-up – The H-Lift 700 eliminated pet hairs like a pro, pulling in fibres even deep within the carpet

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Hoover H-lift 700 design – A decent roster of tools and impressive suction make it a versatile all-rounder

Certainly not falling short on features and accessories, the Hoover H-Lift 700 is packed with tools and impressively offers three different cleaning modes. It can be used as an upright vacuum across carpets and hard flooring, as a light-weight lift-out machine for stair cleaning, and as a stick cleaner. The latter was great for sucking up muck from tight spaces such as under our sofas.

The floorhead has a tilting and pivot neck for greater manoeuvrability. We found this especially useful for vacuuming forgotten crumbs under and around furniture such as tables and chairs. Thrown in the mix is a hose that stretches up to lengthy 2.5m and an 8m-long mains cable that provides plenty of cleaning freedom. The cable easily wraps around the main body for stoage, or to keep the cable tidy if you’re vacuuming only a small area.

The H-Lift 700 has a fixed power level and switchable brush bar: on for carpets; off for hard floors and detail cleaning with the hose.

Included with the H-Lift 700 is a decent roster of tools that can all be stored on its main body. Headlining the selection is the Mini Turbo Nozzle, designed to loosen and lift stubborn pet hair from carpets and furniture. It’s a basic design without any articulation in the neck, but it worked wonders on our dog’s beds. There is a 2-in-1 Crevice and Dusting Brush, a longer service tool for deeper crevices and an extension tube for extra reach. All tools can be used in upright or Lift-Out mode too. Great stuff.

For the floorhead, two wiper blades can be slotted in front and behind the brush bar to concentrate the suction power. They’re a pain to fit and remove, and only really served to increase floorhead stick-down on the carpet. They went straight back in the box.

The 1.5l capacity bin is a good size and was easily emptied by pressing the blue button, although we did have to manually pull out some pet hairballs that were stuck around the filter. The H-Lift 700’s H13 HEPA filtration system aims to trap tiny particles instead of recirculating them back into the air, so its great option for allergy sufferers. Both filters are washable, so there are no consumable costs.

Sturdy and solid, the H-Lift 700 feels well made and assembly out of the box is simple. It’s a large vacuum cleaner, so no surprise that it’s rather heavy on the arm as an upright. That isn’t a problem in Lift-Out cleaning mode, since the weight drops from a portly 7kg to around 3.5kg.

Tools and accessories pop on and off with ease, and it isn’t a noisy cleaner despite its solid 700W motor. We measured just 74dB, which was 6dB less than stated on the energy label. That’s about the same volume as light music playing in your living room, albeit not likely to make the charts.

For the price, this Hoover packs plenty of versatility, tools and features, and backs that up with solid cleaning results throughout. It ably picked up dirt in our hard floor and carpet tests, leaving very little mess behind on a single pass. It can’t quite match the full-on cleaning power of the Shark AX950UKT – but its arguably easier to use and a whole lot cheaper.

Should I buy the Hoover H-Lift 700?

If you’re looking for a versatile vacuum with plenty of cleaning options, a great range of tools, and the ability to remove the toughest of pet hairs, we think the Hoover H-Lift 700 is a great option. It produced excellent cleaning results across all floor types and didn’t struggle when it came to stair-cleaning thanks to the Lift-Out mode.

The vacuum is a little heavy, and the overall design could be neater. However, its ability to do the vacuuming job in hand, whether as an upright, stick or lift-out cylinder, is admirable at the price. It doesn’t give too much cleaning performance away to competitors such as Shark’s DuoClean Powered Lift-Away and comes in a whole lot cheaper, underlining its great value.