Clearly, clearing up pet hairs on carpets and fabrics is more about tool and floor head design that sheer suction power. Both motorised heads are truly outstanding at pet-hair cleaning over carpets and fabrics, and the easy to remove bars make for the simplest cleaning out afterwards too.

The handle is broad and comfortable, even for people with small hands, and the power button – which resembles a trigger – is ergonomically placed just where your forefinger should be. Fortunately, it’s a doddle to pop out the roller for cleaning – a twist of the coin-slot release plate on the left-hand side of the head and it springs out, ready to be de-gunked.On open carpets using the Direct Drive floor head, cleaning results are exceptional. The carpet test was cleared of the powder/granule mix in a single pass. The head also showed exceptional edge cleaning, irrespective of which side of the head was against the wall The nylon brushes and powered design of the V8 Animal’s direct-drive head means it gets deep into the pile of your carpet, while the 425W “digital motor” inside the V8 Absolute has plenty of suction power – 115 air watts to be precise A power-boosting “MAX” slider switch sits on top of the motor housing, and in front of that is a big red catch. Position the cleaner over the bin, pull the clip and the whole cyclone assembly pulls up out of the bin. As it reaches about half way out, the flap at the bottom of the bin opens to dump the contents. This is particularly handy for those with pets, as fur balls have a tenacious ability to become wedged in bagless cleaner bins between the cyclone and the bin itself. From a noise perspective though, it’s among the noisier cordless home vacuums we have tested, at 80dB on max setting and 75dB on standard. However, it does depend on what market you’re comparing it in, as those levels actually make it one of the quieter handheld car vacs. Overall, it’s unlikely to annoy you - particularly on the standard setting. Using soft fibers and carbon bristles on a rotating bar, the Soft Roller is designed to glide directly over floors, and this means that if you have larger debris (like kitchen spills) that need cleaning up, they’re not scattered willy nilly. And, depending on which V8 model you opt for, you also get a low-reach adaptor that you can fit onto the end of the telescopic tube to get under couches and low tables (as pictured in the image above).

Yet perhaps the best features of this head for pet owners is the ease with which the bar can be removed for cleaning and detangling. Simply turn the coin-slot panel at one end and the bar slides straight out. The reverse operation is just as simple.

The oldest member of Dyson's handstick lineup still delivers

No need to touch the dirt – just pull the lever to release it into your bin. 2 Tier Radial cyclones Arguably, this isn’t a major issue since the V8 is easy to empty – but we found that a 25-minute (standard power) cleaning session around the ground floor resulted in us having to empty the bin twice and again at the end. You get a transparent 0.54L dustbin that makes up the bulk of the handheld unit, with 15 small cyclone cones arranged in a two-tier flower shape in front of it. It weighs 3.5lbs/1.6kg with no attachments, and at its heaviest, it weighs 5.6lbs/2.6kg (with the wand and main cleaning head attached). For a household vac, that’s pretty lightweight, but it’s a little on the heavier side when considering comparable handheld vacs for car cleaning. On hard floors, we did miss the Soft Roller head for its amazing cleaning and floor-polishing effect. Yet we also agreed that, had we never used the Soft Roller, the Direct Drive head still produced excellent results over parquet, laminate and riven tiles.

On the plus side, the trigger style on/off switch does save power and increase actual cleaning time. This is because you’re inclined to let the trigger go as soon as you pull away from the area you’re cleaning. A standard switch might even get left on as you walk between rooms. That 7-8 minutes is all proper cleaning time. Dyson V8 Animal – How does it clean? As mentioned before, the V8 comes with a bunch of accessories, including a telescopic tube that’s perfect for general use. Every tool clips easily on and off the main handheld unit, even with one hand. The standard direct-drive head is great on pretty much any surface, but if you happen to buy the V8 Absolute, you’ll get a Soft Roller cleaning head that’s the best option for hard floors.My verdict on the V8 Animal is much the same as the one my colleague, Nathan, reached on the Absolute. It’s brilliant, combining the thorough carpet-cleaning power of a regular upright vacuum cleaner with the flexibility of a handheld cordless cleaner.