Smart pod system makes emptying easy

Verdict

Like the standard Henry Quick, only in blue, the Henry Quick Pet has all of the same neat features, including long battery life, powerful cleaning and a pod system that makes it easy to empty. With this cleaner there’s an additional motorised mini tool for pet beds and furniture. The only real downside is that the floor head is not anti-tangle, so it can get tangled with long hair.

Introduction

The second cordless vacuum cleaner in the line-up, the Henry Quick Pet is the same as the Henry Quick, although decked out in blue rather than red.

It comes with a mini motorised tool for cleaning upholstery and carpets. It’s powerful, cleans well on all surfaces, and its clever pod system makes it easy to quickly dispose of dirt without any spills.

Design and Features

• Pod bin system
• Simple to use
• Takes scent sticks

The Henry range of vacuum cleaners is endearing, thanks to the painted-on faces that give a sense of personality. That’s evident on the Henry Quick Pet, which has a smiling face at the top of its blue body.

Does it make a difference to cleaning quality? No. Does it make the vacuum feel like an old friend? Yes, and what’s wrong with that?

Although Blue, the Henry Quick Pet is identical to the original Henry Quick, bar the addition of the motorised pet tool. This clips onto the end of the wand or in the handheld unit and provides extra power for removing pet hair from beds, sofas and stairs. It’s a useful upgrade if you have pets.

Otherwise, the range of accessories is the same, with the vacuum cleaner shipping with a crevice tool, a 2-in-1 brush, and the motorised floor head.

There’s no onboard tool storage, but there is a wall-mount dock, which will take the crevice tool and 2-in-1 brush, which is handy.

There’s also an additional clip-on handle in the box, which gives a larger grip for the vacuum cleaner, making it easier to use for anyone with more limited mobility.

It helps that the vacuum cleaner is well balanced and, at 3.2kg, quite light. I found it no problem to push around, or to pick up the unit and clean up around the top of the ceiling.

As with the original, the Henry Quick Pet has simple controls. An on/off button turns the vacuum cleaner on in a power mode that’s suitable for most tasks, and there’s a boost button that ups power for tougher jobs.

A third button toggles the motorised brush bar on and off: you’ll want it on for carpets and off for dealing with hard floors.

A scent stick can be inserted at the back of the vacuum cleaner, which freshens the exhaust air that comes out of the back. I’m a big fan of this system and have enjoyed it on rival systems like Shark Stratos IZ420UKT, too. The scent doesn’t mean that your house is cleaner, but it’s always nice to walk into a fresh-smelling room after it’s been cleaned.

As with all of the Henry products, including the standard Henry HVR160, the Quick Pet uses bags. Or, in this case pods. Six come in the box, and they simply slot into the front. When full, push the button to open the flap and you can eject a pod cleanly and efficiently, which is great for houses with allergy sufferers.

Replacements cost £12.99 for 10, but they’re large with a 1-litre capacity, so each one will last for a few cleans.

The battery slides out for charging, which also means that it’s easy to replace should you get any issues with it.

Performance

• Long battery life
• Needs the brush bar turned off for hard floors
• A mid-level power setting would be useful

I measured the Henry Quick Pet’s suction power at the nozzle, giving the result in airwatts (AW), which combines suction power and air flow.

The standard mode is just 23AW, which is a little low; the high power mode is a powerful 192AW, which is not far off the result from the Shark IZ420UKT, although a chunk behind the super-powerful Tefal X-Force Flex 14.60.

What does this level of power mean? Well, on the Boost suction power, the Henry Quick Pet is capable of sucking up rice granules from 1.7cm away, which means it should be able to manage handheld jobs well, such as vacuuming out a car or kitchen drawer.

I moved to my real world tests, adding 20g of flour to my test carpet. There was a relatively clean line through the mess after a single sweep backwards and forwards on standard power. Close inspection shows that some dust is left behind.

I finished vacuuming using a combination of standard and Boost power, until the carpet looked clean. Measuring the dust pod at the end, I found that 92.35% of the mess had made it into the bag: an impressive performance.

Moving to the difficult edge test, I added 20g of flour to the carpet tiles, right up to the skirting board. I then ran the Henry Quick Pet along the skirting board on standard power, and found that quite a bit of mess was left.

Tackling the job again on Boost, the floor looked clean, and I measured that I had picked up 98.4% of the mess, which is brilliant.

On my hard floor, I added 20g of rice grains and then used standard power mode to collect them. I found that with the brush bar turned on, the Henry Quick Pet span the grains of rice around, and dropped several back onto the floor.

Turning the brush bar off improved things, and the vacuum cleaner collected 100% of the rice. I combed cat hair into the test carpet and found that the vacuum cleaner could easily remove all of it.

With human hair, the results weren’t so good, as the hairs got wrapped around the brush bar, and had to be cut away. It would be good to see an anti-tangle floor head available.

Battery life was 1h 9m on the lowest power setting and 16m 25s on the Boost setting. Again, this shows that the Henry Quick Pet could do with a power mode somewhere between the two; as it stands, I found that I needed to switch between the two power modes to get the best results. I estimate that there’s around 45 minutes of real world usage in a full charge, which is still good.

Measured at 76.5dB on Boost and 70.5dB on standard mode, the Henry Quick Pet is about average for a cordless vacuum cleaner.

Latest deals