When news that Dyson was adding a handheld vacuum to its range reached my ears, I was excited. This is a brand known for its cutting-edge engineering; its boundary-pushing designs. What innovations would it come up with for the all-new Dyson Car+Boat?

Turns out, not many. When I unboxed my review model, it felt familiar. The specs, too, seemed very similar to what I remembered from another vacuum. Then I got my old Dyson V8 out, to compare, and had a Lindsey Lohan Parent Trap moment. The Car+Boat wasn’t just similar to the V8, it was identical. To create the Car+Boat, Dyson has taken a V8, removed the wand and floorheads, and popped one new attachment into the box. It even says ‘Dyson V8’ on the box of my review model.

All of Dyson’s stick vacuums can be turned into handheld model by removing the floor wand and adding a detail tool, so if you already have a newer Dyson, you might well feel put out if you decided to shell out for a Car+Boat. Two of the three attachments included with the Car+Boat are also bundled in as standard with Dyson’s stick vacuums – namely the Crevice tool and Combo tool. I assume the third (a new handheld attachment) will also be added to Dyson’s accessory store at some point, too.

I’m writing this the day before the new model goes on sale to the general public, and there’s a chance Dyson will have shifted its wording to make it clearer that the Car+Boat isn’t a new model by the time it’s officially released to the public. I think that would be a good move, because if you’re aware of it, the fact that the Car+Boat is the same as the V8 isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Let me explain…

A handy solution?

When I first heard about this model I said I thought it looked set to blow other handhelds out of the water, and now I’ve tested it out properly for my Dyson Car+Boat review, many of the things I was initially enthusiastic by turned out to be just as impressive in practice.

The V8 isn’t the best Dyson vacuum based on specs. It came out in 2016, and there are currently three newer vacuums in the lineup: the Dyson V11, the V15 Detect and Gen5detect. However, the V8 is the best option for handheld use. It’s the lightest of the three (considerably so, in the case of the newest Gen5detect, which clocks in a 7.7lbs compared to the V8’s 5.6lbs). It’s also the most compact, and therefore better at getting into awkward nooks and crannies.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say the V8 is better suited to use as a handheld than it is as a floor vacuum. The dust cup is slightly irritatingly small for a whole-home vacuum, but generous for a handheld. Same goes for the battery life – 50 minutes might not be enough time to clean a large home, but it’s more than enough for a car, and far longer than you’ll get with even the best car vacuums on the market.

You’re not getting the suction-maximizing in-line design introduced with the V11 (where the cyclones, wand and dust cup are all stacked in a line), but that’s perhaps less of an issue when the suction head is so close to the motor, rather than all the way at the end of a wand.

In short, the V8 is still an excellent handheld vacuum. I’d be excited to see what Dyson could come up with if it tried something truly new in the handheld vacuum area.

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