Verdict

Fab to use, funky looks and excellent pet hair-busting vacuuming performance make the Sebo Felix Wild Epower a great buy for carpeted homes, and it copes well with stairs too. The only disappointment was in the hard floor pick-up test during which the machine pushed my dirt around a lot. If you have mostly hard floors then you might want a different cleaner.

Pros

• Excellent carpet cleaning
• Great for dog and cat hair
• Cleans right up to the edge
• Highly manoeuvrable
• Good tool for stairs
• Funky looks

Cons

• So-so pick-up on hard floor
• Consumable costs in bags and filters

Funky looks, a leopard-print cover, bagged cleaning and an ultra-manoeuvrable floorhead make the Sebo Felix Wild Epower a delightfully different upright cleaner. It packs in a 700-watt mains-powered motor with adjustable power and an aggressive brush bar with height adjustment for different carpet piles. The main cleaner can be removed from the floorhead for mobile cleaning.

Great carpet cleaning right up to the edge and easy steering make the Felix Wild a great performer for carpeted homes but it struggled with my oats pick-up test on a tiled hard floor. Pets are not a problem for the Felix Wild, with outstanding pet hair pick-up from the main head and well-designed upholstery tools for sofas and pet beds. It’s a bit hefty when carried, but afforded good stair cleaning. For carpeted homes with pets, the Sebo Felix Wild Epower is a versatile, effective and good-looking vacuum with lots of cleaning freedom.

Sebo Felix Wild Epower – What you need to know

• • • General vacuuming: Easy to steer, feels lighter than it is and the removable body offers carriable cleaning for stairs.
    • Carpet test: Plenty of suction and the height-adjustable beater bar delivers excellent carpet cleaning right up to the skirting board edge.
    • Hard floor test: Not the best, with my spilled oats getting pushed around more than sucked up. Several passes were needed to clear them up.
    • Pet hair pick-up: The Felix Wild sucked up animal hair like a boss – not one straggler was left behind. It cleaned carpets and the dog’s bed with ease.

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Groovy looks and excellent carpet cleaning make the Sebo Felix Wild Epower a pleasure to use

The Sebo Felix Wild Epower makes a dreaded job fun with its groovy leopard-print looks and smooth, ultra-manoeuvrable action. It’s easy to assemble – you simply pop the main cleaner into the floorhead, attach the hose and you’re good to go. Build quality, fit, feel and finish are top-notch, right through to the leopard-print cover.

There is plenty of power on tap and this, combined with the four-position brush bar, delivers great cleaning results across a variety of carpets. While you can switch the brush bar off on hard floors, the Felix Wild was a bit too wild for my conservatory tiles, pushing spilled oats around more than picking them up.

Included with the vacuum is a crevice nozzle for those awkward high cobwebs and hard-to-reach areas, and an upholstery tool. These attach to the flexible hose that curves around the body. The device can be lifted away from the floorhead and carried easily thanks to the long side handle. It’s not super-light in this mobile mode, but the nozzle was very effective at getting into nooks and crannies and reaching fairly high areas. On my carpeted stairs the upholstery tool delivered great cleaning results.

The floorhead is a slightly odd asymmetrical shape and features a single brush bar with stiff nylon bristles. There is a four-position brush-height adjuster with an indicator that flashes red if you are too high off the carpet pile. Drop the level until the light turns green and you get the most effective cleaning. Pretty cool, I must say.

The Sebo Felix Wild is a little loud in use but is easy to adjust

That powerful motor and aggressive brush bar are not super-silent in use. My sound pressure meter crested at 80dB vacuuming short-pile carpet, just about tallying up with the energy label’s 79dB claim. That is a bit rowdy for a modern cleaner but far from deafening.

On the handle, the on/off switch doubles as the suction level slider control, increasing the power as you move your thumb forward. For users both short and tall, you can adjust the handle height and wrap the nicely long 9-metre cable around its extended hook for storage.

The Sebo Felix Wild uses a bag, which helps keep dust out of the air

Consumable costs include replacing Sebo’s well-made and effective dust bag. Thanks to the bags’ green sealing caps you won’t end up in a cloud of dust when you empty the bin. Allergy sufferers take note.

The filtration is rated as S-class by a combination of the bag, a motor filter beneath the bag and the funky leopard-print wrap that is also the exhaust filter. All are replaceable rather than washable, with the instruction manual recommending the motor filter is changed every 20 full bags and the exhaust filter every 40. At this point, you could change from the leopard-print pattern to something completely different, such as the Felix White Oriental or Felix Heart patterns.

There’s a nice touch with Sebo Fresh air fresheners. Simply pop one into the filter bag and a lovely scent of oranges fills the room. If you need a little more versatility, Sebo offers a broad range of optional heads, hoses and tubes that are compatible with Felix models, from parquet tools to the intriguingly named Disco Polisher.

Should I buy the Sebo Felix Wild Epower?

The Sebo Felix Wild Epower offers excellent carpet cleaning right up to the edge, brilliant pet hair pick-up and groovy leopard-print looks. Its freely pivoting neck makes vacuuming easy, allowing you to clean under sofas and steer around obstacles. With the body detached from the floorhead, it works well on stairs, although its vertical cleaning reach is limited as there is no extension tube. You get a couple of handy tools and half a dozen fragrant air fresheners that pop into the filter bag, giving the room a nice orange scent while you vacuum. The bag seals well for removal, ensuring you don’t get covered in dust after cleaning. There are no other filters to clean, meaning the Felix goes back up to full performance on every bag change. Aside from a disappointing oat pick-up test on a tiled floor, this powerful vacuum produced excellent cleaning results.