Cordless or corded: which one your home actually needs

The vacuum you own is the one you use, and the one you use is almost always the one that is easiest to pick up. That single fact explains why cordless machines have taken over despite being, on paper, worse at nearly everything.

Start with weight, because it is the specification that decides whether a cordless vacuum gets used for the job it is worst at: above your head. Anything over three kilograms in a stick format becomes a two-handed exercise at ceiling height, and the weight quoted is usually the machine without the floor head, which is not how you will hold it.

Runtime and bin size only mean something together

Runtime figures need careful reading. Manufacturers quote the eco or low-power mode. That is honest — it is a real mode — but it is not the mode most people use on carpet. A quoted sixty minutes typically means fifteen to twenty on the highest setting, and the drop is steeper on machines with smaller batteries. Where a maker publishes runtime per mode rather than a single headline number, that tells you something good about the rest of their documentation.

Bin size sounds like a footnote and is not. A half-litre bin on a machine with forty minutes of runtime means you will empty it before the battery goes flat, every single time. The ratio between bin volume and runtime is more informative than either number on its own, and almost nobody presents them together.

Filtration, and the word "whole-machine"

Filtration is where cheap machines genuinely do not compete. Whole-machine HEPA means the air leaving the vacuum is filtered, not only the air passing through the bin — and the distinction matters, because a machine can carry a HEPA-rated filter cartridge while leaking unfiltered air around it. For a household with allergies this is the specification to check first, and it is the one most often blurred in marketing copy.

Parts availability decides the real cost

Then there is the question that decides what a vacuum costs to own rather than to buy: parts. A cordless vacuum dies when its battery does, unless the maker sells a replacement. Some publish spares for seven years. Others stop at four, and a machine that cannot take a new battery in year five is a machine you replace in year five. This information is published by most manufacturers and read by almost no one.

Corded machines still win on sustained power, capacity and lifespan, and they are still the right answer for large homes with a lot of carpet. For everyone else the honest comparison is not cordless versus corded — it is a cordless machine you use three times a week against a corded one you use once a fortnight.