This is the Instruction manual for the Argos Product Black & Decker NW4820N Wet/Dry Dustbuster Vacuum Cleaner (406/0967) in PDF format. Product support is also available. Shop for the BLACK+DECKER BDH2000PL MAX Lithium Pivot Vacuum, 20-volt at the Amazon Home & Kitchen Store. Find products from BLACK+DECKER.

• Black And Decker Dustbuster Guide

Your guides

• Liam McCabe

• Michelle Ma

We’ve looked at 72 different handheld vacuums over more than 100 hours of research and testing in the past five years, and we think that the Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL is a great choice for most people. With its flexible 4-foot hose and clip-on attachments, it can reach into spots around your home and car that other vacuums can’t.

Our pick

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL

Solid suction, a 4-foot flexible hose, and clip-on tools help our longtime pick reach spots in your car and home that other handheld vacuums at this price can’t touch.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $85.

The Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL has enough suction to pick up Cheerios, road grit, and other common messes pretty quickly. It has a tool for brushing up pet hair, too. And the 16 minutes of no-fade run time should be enough to tidy up the interior of a three-row minivan or SUV. Plenty of handhelds have either stronger suction or better tools, but the Max Flex Vac is the only one that blends this kind of power and versatility for the price. It’s been our top pick since 2014, and we know that it holds up well over a few years of use.

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Runner-up

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FLFH

This is essentially the same vacuum as our main pick, plus a (pointless) floor-cleaning attachment. Buy whichever one costs less.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.

If our main pick is out of stock or the price is inflated, consider the Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FLFH variant instead. It’s exactly the same vacuum with the same attachments as our main pick, plus an extension wand and a floor-cleaning head. We (and dozens of other owners) have found the floor-extension kit to be totally worthless and ineffective. Just ignore it, and buy whichever version of the Max Flex Vac happens to be cheaper the day you’re shopping.

Budget pick

Black+Decker Dustbuster Hand Vacuum (CHV1410L)

Cross my heart by james patterson epub. If you need something simple for quick cleanups, this small, affordable handheld will get the job done.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $50.

If you plan to use your handheld only for occasional tidy-ups, the Black+Decker Max Lithium Dustbuster Hand Vacuum CHV1410L is a simpler, cheaper alternative to our main pick. It can’t reach as many awkward spots or get hair off upholstery, but it costs a lot less and still manages to clean most common debris. The 12-minute, no-fade run time is decent, and the recharging time is faster than on a lot of similar models. This model has also been the best-selling handheld vacuum at Amazon for years, where it has excellent owner ratings based on thousands of reviews.

Upgrade pick

Dyson V7 Car+Boat

If price isn’t your top concern, this model is the strongest handheld vacuum you can buy, with attachments to help it clean almost anywhere in your home or car.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $224.

The Dyson V7 Car+Boat is by far the strongest handheld vacuum we’ve ever tested, sucking up more grit of all sizes in less time. It also has a set of attachments a lot like our main pick’s, which should make cleaning corners, upholstery, and tight spaces easy. The 30-minute battery life is enough to thoroughly clean the interior of a large vehicle. This model is so effective that you might be grossed out by how much debris it picks up at first. To be fair, the V7 Car+Boat is wicked expensive for a vacuum that can’t really clean your floors. But if you want the best, this is it. (And yes, Dyson handhelds are essentially the same vacuums as the Dyson sticks that we cover in our cordless vacuum guide, just without the floor-extension tube or cleaning heads.)

Everything we recommend

Our pick

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL

Solid suction, a 4-foot flexible hose, and clip-on tools help our longtime pick reach spots in your car and home that other handheld vacuums at this price can’t touch.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $85.

Runner-up

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FLFH

This is essentially the same vacuum as our main pick, plus a (pointless) floor-cleaning attachment. Buy whichever one costs less.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.

Budget pick

Black+Decker Dustbuster Hand Vacuum (CHV1410L)

If you need something simple for quick cleanups, this small, affordable handheld will get the job done.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $50.

Upgrade pick

Dyson V7 Car+Boat

If price isn’t your top concern, this model is the strongest handheld vacuum you can buy, with attachments to help it clean almost anywhere in your home or car.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $224.

The research

Why you should trust us

Liam McCabe has covered vacuums for Wirecutter for more than four years, logging hundreds of hours of research and testing in that time. He has personally tested at least 50 vacuums of all types, in several homes with varied floor plans. He wrote this guide from 2014 through 2016, and has edited it since 2017.

Michelle Ma is a former retail reporter who has interviewed dozens of manufacturers about how their products are made, sold, and used. For this update, she researched 32 new models and logged 20 hours testing the main contenders both at home and at our test site, comparing them with our previous picks.

We’ve also interviewed a number of vacuum experts over the years, from service technicians to vacuum salespeople. For this update, we spoke to more experts, engineers, and brand reps, including:

• Caroline Blazovsky, founder of My Healthy Home and an indoor air quality specialist who sits on the Indoor Air Quality Association’s public education committee
• Josh Mutlow, senior design engineer at Dyson
• Christopher Shook, director of engineering at Stanley Black & Decker
• Zara Jones, product manager of handheld vacuums at Stanley Black & Decker

This guide accounts for all handheld vacuums available as of September 2018. We’ve covered this category since 2013, totaling about 115 collective hours of research and testing. Liam has put in dozens of hours testing our main pick since 2014, and testing an older version of our upgrade pick since 2016. A half-dozen other Wirecutter staff members have also bought our main pick and used it in their own homes.

We’ve also made a point to listen to as many of our readers as possible, through comments on our guides, emails, Twitter exchanges, and message-board posts. Although we do our own testing, we also think it’s important to pay attention to the reviews from other outlets such as Reviewed and Good Housekeeping, though neither one covers the category comprehensively.

Who should get this

The best reason to buy a good handheld vacuum is because it can reach places that bigger vacuums can’t, or at least not conveniently. The most common examples are the interior of a car and surfaces around your house that aren’t the floor, such as countertops, windowsills, curtains, and shelves.

Most of the best cordless stick vacuums pull double duty as handheld vacuums, too.

Handheld vacuums are also convenient for quick cleanups around the house because they’re battery powered and compact enough to sit out on a shelf or countertop between uses. In other words, a handheld can clean up a pile of spilled coffee grounds before you even dig your main vacuum out of the closet, let alone unwrap its cord.

Other options to consider: Most of the best cordless stick vacuums (meant for cleaning floors) pull double duty as handheld vacuums, too. Also, the best plug-in vacuums have hoses and attachments that let them clean most of the same spots as the best handheld vacuums—you just need to be near an outlet and have the patience to wheel the thing out and unwrap the cord whenever you want to use it.

How we picked

We started by making a spreadsheet of every handheld vacuum that we could find listed on manufacturers’ websites and at popular retailers. We’ve tallied up 72 models since we started covering this category, though a few are now discontinued.

For our main pick, we wanted to find a handheld vacuum that made it as easy as possible to tidy up small messes, or places that a regular vacuum can’t easily reach, like your car.

Black And Decker Dustbuster Guide

Crucial, bare-minimum features

If a vacuum didn’t meet these baseline specs, we didn’t even consider testing it:

• A minimum of 15 air watts or a 16-volt battery: Air wattage is an industry-standard measurement for suction power. In our testing, we've found that it's not always an accurate gauge of cleaning ability. That said, 15 air watts should be enough for the small messes that handhelds usually deal with, though more is better. Some manufacturers don’t advertise their handhelds’ air wattage. In those cases, we looked at the battery voltage instead. A higher battery voltage doesn’t necessarily mean more cleaning power, but we’ve found that 16 volts is a reasonable baseline for decent suction.
• A lithium or lithium-ion battery: Most cordless vacuums now use one of these battery types. They maintain steady suction throughout their run time, and can sit for months between uses without losing their charge.

Important, useful features

These features separate the best handhelds from the pretty-good ones:

• Cleaning ability: Almost any handheld can pick up visible crumbs and dirt. Some of them do so faster than others. Really strong handhelds can also suck up some fine dust, as well as larger, heavier pebbles or chunks of food. Attachments or extensions can focus the suction for better cleaning, or help get debris off clingy surfaces. Pet-hair brushes are particularly useful. The more attachments, the better.
• More than 15 minutes of battery life: Although most handheld vacuums have plenty of juice for quick, occasional cleanups, the best ones last long enough to clean an entire car.
• Flexible hose: This feature makes it easier to reach into the tight spaces under car seats, and other awkward high- or low-angle spots around the house. A note of caution: Although an extension tube will help with handling, the longer airflow pathway reduces the suction.

Based on those specs, we narrowed in on a handful of finalists: the Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL, the Dyson V6 Car+Boat, the Dyson V7 Car+Boat, and the Bissell Multi Cordless Hand Vac 1985. The price range was wide, but on paper they looked like the most versatile, powerful hand vacs available, so we tried all four of them out for ourselves.

Not everyone needs such a full-featured hand vacuum, so we also selected some more affordable Dustbuster-style hand vacs to test: the Black+Decker Max Lithium Dustbuster Hand Vacuum CHV1410L, the Black+Decker Lithium Dustbuster Hand Vacuum HHVI325JR, and the Dirt Devil Quick Flip Plus BD30025.

How we tested

We tested the contenders around our houses for a few weeks, mainly for everyday tasks like picking up random tufts of cat hair (sometimes off upholstery), cleaning crumbs off countertops or the kitchen floor, and tidying up a car after camping and moving sports equipment—most of the typical uses for handheld vacuums, in other words.

Sometimes we used two contenders side by side for these cleanups to make a more direct comparison. For example, Liam cleaned the driver’s side of his car with the Dyson V6 Car+Boat and the passenger side with the Bissell Multi Cordless 1985 to get a clear visual of how much debris the Bissell left behind relative to the Dyson.

We also set up semiformal tests to gauge the suction. We poured out lines of coffee grounds, flour, and dried chickpeas on a flat, smooth surface, and noted how easily each model could pick them up.

We also tested battery life; generally, we noticed that real-world battery life matched up with manufacturers’ advertised claims.

Our pick

Our pick

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL

Solid suction, a 4-foot flexible hose, and clip-on tools help our longtime pick reach spots in your car and home that other handheld vacuums at this price can’t touch.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $85.

The Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FL is our favorite handheld vacuum because its unique flexible 4-foot hose and clip-on attachments help it reach and clean awkward spots around your home and car that other handhelds struggle with. The suction is strong enough to handle most common types of debris, such as crumbs, road grit, and hair. It also has a 16-minute, no-fade run time, which should be enough to give most cars a thorough tidy-up.

We found that the Max Flex Vac takes four hours to recharge and has a 16-minute run time.

The Max Flex Vac’s average price (at or below $110) makes it a decent value, though sometimes the price spikes to the point where it’s not really worth the investment. Check the price history and be prepared to wait a couple of days for a better deal. While the suction is good enough for most jobs, this model is not the strongest handheld, and it may struggle with large debris like leaves. But given its versatility and relative cleaning strength, we think it’s worth the money if you’ll use it regularly.

The Max Flex Vac looks more like a miniature canister vacuum than a traditional Dustbuster-style handheld, but the design makes it much more versatile. You’re meant to use it with two hands: one holding the main assembly, the other guiding the 4-foot hose. Because the intake is separate from the bulky motor assembly, you can more easily reach tight spaces at weird angles, like under car seats or anywhere above your head. We also think that the two-handed design makes this model more comfortable to use for jobs that take at least a few minutes, like cleaning your car. We asked a few Wirecutter staff members to compare the feel and handling of a few of our top contenders, and most said they preferred the Max Flex Vac’s versatility over the feel of a regular handheld. (If you want, you can use it with one hand. Just set the main canister down somewhere.)

The hose on the Max Flex Vac accepts clip-on attachments. Like most handheld vacuums, it has a combo with bristles that can help grab clingy particles. The crevice tool is helpful as a wand extender, but it also gets into nooks like the storage compartments built into car doors or the tight areas around car seats. We found that the crevice tool focuses the Max Flex Vac’s airflow, allowing it to suck up heavier debris that the combo brush or open hose might struggle with. Most handhelds have some sort of crevice tool, but the Max Flex Vac’s is longer than usual. This vac also has a pet-hair brush, which helps corral fuzz in a way that most handhelds struggle with. It’s just a nubbed, rubbery tool—not a motorized brush like some handhelds come with—but it gets the job done and won’t require maintenance. All of the tools lock into place on the hose, so you won’t have to worry about them slipping off in your driveway and getting lost.

At 24 air watts, the Max Flex Vac has plenty of suction for tidy-up jobs. We’ve tested the Max Flex Vac in all sorts of ways over the past few years—cleaning cat hair off a couch, sucking up dirt and pebbles and some plant matter from a car after a weekend of camping, dealing with stray crumbs and cat litter—and found that it reliably picks up most types of visible debris. Other owner reviews mention using it to clean dog hair, sand, lint, cobwebs, and small leaves.

In our testing, we found that the Max Flex Vac takes four hours to recharge and has a 16-minute run time, just as Black+Decker claims. That’s enough time to clean most cars with a few minutes to spare, and it’s usually enough for a three-row minivan or SUV. Thanks to the lithium-ion battery, it maintains steady power throughout the charge cycle. The suction starts to drop off only in the last minute or so of battery life.

As with most handheld vacuums, the Max Flex Vac’s dirt canister is easy enough to empty: Pull a latch on the side of the vacuum’s body, tip it toward the garbage can, give it a whack, and watch the debris fall out. When the bin gets really grimy, like if you accidentally vacuum something moist, you can pop out the whole bowl and wash it in the sink. The filter is reusable, too. Black+Decker says that it’s washable, and we’ve washed ours without incident a few times, but since the filter is made of paper, it’s best to shake or knock debris loose most of the time.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The price is the biggest problem. The Max Flex Vac often costs $120, which is a lot to spend on a handheld vacuum. For most of 2017, the average price held steady around $110 and dropped as low as $70. Overall, we still think that the versatility afforded by the hose and attachments, plus the solid suction, makes this model a worthwhile choice for people who will use it a few times per week.

Several Amazon customer reviewers write that the Max Flex Vac does not have as much suction as they expected. In our testing, we found that with the open hose (no attachments), the Max Flex Vac struggled with the larger leaves and heavier pebbles that we tracked into a car after a weekend in the woods. It even felt a little weaker than one of the cheaper Dustbusters we tested. But with the combo brush or especially the crevice tool attached, we found that the Max Flex Vac worked as well as other models. The fibers on the combo brush loosened clingy particles, while the crevice tool focused the suction. And judging from an overall rating of 4.1 (out of five) across more than 1,000 Amazon reviews, we think most people who own the Max Flex Vac agree that it’s strong. This review by Kellie J. represents the typical response: “This thing is powerful. Sucked up cereal, a few hairbands & so much more that gets under the furniture.” Still, if you prioritize very strong suction over anything else, look into our upgrade pick.

The filter in the Max Flex Vac gets dirty very quickly. After two battery cycles of heavy usage, we noticed a drop-off in suction, because the filter was already caked in dust. This problem is common among most handheld vacuums (apart from the higher-end models). You’ll need to be diligent about knocking the dust loose; we found that whacking it against the edge of our garbage can a few times was enough to get the air flowing again. When the filter gets really grimy, run it under the faucet and let it dry for 24 hours. In three years of long-term testing the Max Flex Vac, we’ve replaced the filter twice, after it got so filthy that the grime wouldn’t even rinse away under running water.

The Max Flex Vac is noisier than some owners expect. We measured it, and yes, it is pretty loud. It topped out at 77 dBC from ear level, which most people will find annoying after about 10 minutes. But most strong handheld vacuums are noisy, too. Our budget pick, the CHV1410L, peaked at 75 dBC. The Dyson V7 Car+Boat is relatively quiet at 66 dBC on the regular power setting, but it blasts up to 80 dBC with the boost mode turned on. Most upright vacuums come in around 70 dBC, in part because they have more insulation around their motors, and the motors are farther away from your ears.

The Max Flex Vac is pretty loud. Most people will find the volume annoying after about 10 minutes.

We found that pet hair had a way of clinging to the inside of the vacuum’s dirt canister as well, forcing us to dig in and clean it out by hand. But we’ve found that to be a pretty typical problem with handheld vacuums and even full-size bagless vacuums.

Other complaints that come up in some Amazon reviews:

• The dust bin doesn’t separate from the assembly as easily as expected, and kicks up a bunch of dust when you do manage to get it loose. In our experience, this is typical for handheld vacuums.
• The vacuum doesn’t click into place on the charging dock, and some owners mention they had a tough time telling whether it was seated properly for a charge. Look for the blue light on the vacuum’s base for a visual cue.
• It has a short lifespan. Some reviewers claim that it worked for fewer than 20 uses, while others say that it lasts just six months. It does come with a two-year limited warranty, although we do not know what it’s like to try to make a claim with Black+Decker’s customer service. For what it’s worth, we did call the company’s customer support number, and it took less than a minute to connect with a real person. Nobody on the Wirecutter staff who owns a Max Flex Vac has had it break within the warranty period.

Long-term test notes

We’ve tested the same Max Flex Vac unit since 2014. On average, we’ve put it to use a couple of times a month, and it has worked just fine (though that’s a lighter workload than this model will get in the real world with most people who buy it).

As with most bagless vacuums with see-through bodies, this model’s dust bin starts to look pretty grody after a few months of use. Even if you wipe the dust bin from time to time, the plastic still gets etched from the debris whipping around inside it, so it’ll never be as clean as it was when it came out of the box.

Several Wirecutter staff members have bought the Max Flex Vac since we first recommended it in 2013, and they’ve all said they’re still happy with it.

The most irritating issue is the filtration, as we expected. You need to dust the filter off every few uses, or the vacuum will not have any suction. The more dust you clean up with your Max Flex Vac (as opposed to hair and big crumbs), the more significant the problem is. But aside from a couple of high-end models, this is a typical problem for all handheld vacuums.

Several Wirecutter staff members have bought the Max Flex Vac since we first recommended it in 2013, and they’ve all said they’re still happy with it. Editor Ganda Suthivarakom said, “It’s definitely worth the money and I use it all the time.” Editor Dan Frakes said, “It’s worked well, and I like the versatility,” though he added that he wished the charging dock was sturdier and the power button was easier to push. Writer Chris Heinonen said that it’s worth the money he paid for it (though he got it on sale), and that he’s considering buying one for a family member. Each staffer bought the Max Flex Vac in 2015, has used it regularly, and told us that it still works with no noticeable drop-off in battery life or power as of September 2018.

Our test unit finally started to lose some of its battery capacity by the end of 2017, after three years of semi-regular use. In our most recent battery life test, it ran for only 13 minutes. That’s still enough time for most jobs, but we’d expect it to continue to drop over time. Honestly, we haven’t used it very often during 2018, so we’re not sure how quickly the battery life drops off.

An almost-identical runner-up

Runner-up

Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FLFH

This is essentially the same vacuum as our main pick, plus a (pointless) floor-cleaning attachment. Buy whichever one costs less.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $83.

The Black+Decker Max Lithium Flex Vacuum BDH2020FLFH is the same vacuum as our main pick, with the same useful clip-on attachments, plus an extension wand and floor tool that turn it into an ersatz stick vacuum. Buy whichever version costs less when you’re doing your shopping; they are the same thing, for all purposes that matter.

Though the floor-cleaning kit sounds like a good value, it’s pretty much worthless. The Max Flex Vac’s suction, by the time it reaches the end of the extension wand, becomes too weak to be useful at all. We do not consider the Max Flex Vac to be a viable stick vacuum, and we suggest that you just ignore those tools and forget about trying to use this model as a floor-cleaning stick vac. If you want a stick vacuum that doubles as a handheld, consider our favorite cordless stick vacuum, or even a budget-friendly cordless stick vac.

A budget pick for quick cleanups

Budget pick

Black+Decker Dustbuster Hand Vacuum (CHV1410L)

If you need something simple for quick cleanups, this small, affordable handheld will get the job done.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $50.

If you need a regular Dustbuster-style handheld for quick cleanups, buy the Black+Decker Max Lithium Dustbuster Hand Vacuum CHV1410L. It’s a perennial best seller, and one of the most affordable vacuums with a strong lithium battery.

In our testing, the CHV1410L had no trouble sucking up crumbs (including cereal) and dirt off bare surfaces like countertops, tile floors, and windowsills. Black+Decker claims that it pulls 15.2 air watts, which is about 37 percent less than our main pick offers but plenty of power in the real world. We found this model to be about as effective as our main pick for easy jobs that didn’t need special attachments or extra reach. Compared with the similarly priced Dirt Devil Quick Flip Plus, which has the same voltage and 16 air watts, the CHV1410L created suction that felt much stronger.

We clocked the run time for the CHV1410L at about 12 minutes on a few different occasions, though some owners have put it at more like nine or 10 minutes. Either way, that’s pretty typical for handhelds at this price and ample for the types of quick cleanups most people use this vac for. The CHV1410L also recharges in about three hours. That’s much faster than some other cheaper models, which can take as long as 16 hours to fill up.

We found the CHV1410L to be comfortable to handle, too. It weighs less than 4 pounds, with a curved, closed handle for an easy grip. The slide-out crevice tool and swing-out combo brush, both built into the tip of the vacuum, have limited reach but may come in handy from time to time. Both are permanently fixed to the vacuum, so you can’t lose them, either.

The CHV1410L has excellent reviews on Amazon, with an overall score of 4.2 stars (out of five) across more than 15,000 ratings. That’s a very strong score for a vacuum, and the highest volume of ratings that we can remember seeing for any product. This vacuum has been out since 2012, and has been consistently popular since then. Black+Decker told us it had no plans to discontinue the model anytime soon.

The main downside, as with most Dustbuster-style models, is that the CHV1410L can’t clean upholstery as effectively. Debris tends to cling to fabric, and the CHV1410L has neither the suction nor the right tools to offset that clinginess, especially with hair. Also, because the CHV1410L has no hose, cleaning the kinds of odd angles that our main pick excels at is a hassle.

The most cleaning power

Upgrade pick

Dyson V7 Car+Boat

If price isn’t your top concern, this model is the strongest handheld vacuum you can buy, with attachments to help it clean almost anywhere in your home or car.

Buying Options

*At the time of publishing, the price was $224.

If you’re willing to pay for the absolute strongest handheld vacuum so that you can clean your vehicle or home as deeply and quickly as possible, get the Dyson V7 Car+Boat.

Dyson handhelds are much stronger cleaners than any other models we’ve tested, including our main pick. A bunch of variants are available, but we think the V7 Car+Boat has the best feature set, including a 30-minute battery life, a mini motorized brush tool for cleaning upholstery (such as cloth car seats), a flexible extension hose like our main pick has for reaching awkward spots, and a car charger. This model is a very expensive vacuum, and probably overkill for most people. But apart from other, also-expensive Dyson models, no other handheld vacuums come close to its cleaning power.

In our testing, we found that the V7 Car+Boat was much stronger than anything else out there. It sucked up heavier, larger debris, such as leaves or pebbles, that most handhelds couldn’t touch. It picked up much more dust, too, with the mini motorized brush roll attached. And it always did the job faster than other handhelds. Dyson claims that on the standard power setting it pulls 26 air watts, which is only marginally more than our main pick offers. But in our tests, the real-world performance was noticeably more powerful. On the boosted-power Max mode, Dyson claims that it pulls 100 air watts.

With the attachments, the V7 Car+Boat’s advantage over its competitors is even greater. This model comes with a flexible extension hose (like the one built into our main pick), a crevice tool, a combo brush, a stiff-bristle brush for stubborn dirt, a soft dusting brush, and a mini motorized brush roll. We can’t think of a hand-vacuum task that those tools couldn’t handle. The mini brush roll is especially useful because it lets the V7 Car+Boat pick up the kind of clingy debris that every other handheld we tested left behind.

With a run time that we clocked at 30 minutes, the V7 Car+Boat also has more battery life than its competitors. If you’re cleaning the interior of a large vehicle, such as a 15-seat van, that extra time can come in handy. (It’s a few minutes shorter if you’re using the motorized brush tool, which draws extra power from the battery.)

Dyson handhelds are all wildly expensive.

Dyson also makes the V6 Car+Boat. It’s an older model, with a run time that’s 10 minutes shorter than the V7’s, and it costs only $20 less most of the time. It also runs louder, lacks a car charger, and has a smaller debris bin that’s a little trickier to empty. But it’s a few ounces lighter than the V7, and it cleans just as effectively. If you can find a deal on it and don’t mind the slight disadvantages, the V6 Car+Boat is another excellent handheld vacuum. (Dyson told us that it would be harder to find in 2018.)

Likewise, if you don’t think you’ll need all the attachments included with the Car+Boat, consider the V6 Top Dog instead. That model costs a little less but still comes with the mini motorized brush roll, which is the most important attachment. In contrast, we don’t think it’s worth paying extra for the V6 Mattress; its highlight feature is HEPA filtration (the gold standard for air filters), but anytime you empty the dustbin, allergens and irritants will go airborne and negate any benefit that a HEPA filter may have provided. We don’t love the basic V6 Trigger and V7 Trigger because they don’t come with the motorized brush roll.

The downsides: Dyson handhelds are all wildly expensive. The V7 Car+Boat costs anywhere from $60 to $170 more than our main pick, depending on daily price fluctuations. And our main pick is already kind of pricey for a handheld.

And with that high price comes high expectations. Although the newer V7 Car+Boat doesn’t have many reviews at the time of this guide’s writing, some Amazon reviews of the older V6 version express disappointment with its suction (though the average owner ratings for the assorted V6 handheld models are some of the highest we’ve seen for any type of vacuum). That’s hard to fathom, because in our testing the V6 and V7 were so much stronger than any of the other handhelds we tried. We cover some of the other downsides to Dyson’s cordless vacuums in our cordless stick vac guide, if you want to get into the finer details.

Again, most people don’t need to buy such a strong handheld vacuum. It’s overkill for quick cleanups around the house, and tons of plug-in vacuums come with all the same attachments. But the V7 Car+Boat can be a solid choice if you want to deep-clean your car or other spots where your main vacuum can’t reach.

The competition

The Bissell Multi Cordless Hand Vac 1985 has most of the same features as our main pick, including a flexible extension hose and a bunch of attachments, plus some of the upsides of our upgrade pick, like a mini motorized brush tool and a molded one-hand grip. But it didn’t perform any better than the Black+Decker Max Flex Vac in our testing, yet usually costs a lot more. We like this vacuum, and we may even reconsider it for our main pick if the price drops to the level of the Max Flex Vac. For now, it’s not quite effective enough to justify its higher price.

A few lower-voltage Flex Vacs are available from Black+Decker, including the HFVB320J27 and BDH1620FLFH. But we think it’s worth paying extra for one of the 20-volt versions we recommend in this guide, because the added oomph of the battery helps offset the inefficiency of the long, corrugated hose.

Black+Decker makes a few other 20-volt, lithium-powered, handheld vacuums, including the Max Lithium Pivot BDH2000PL, which has a pivoting head, and the Max Lithium BDH2000L or BDH2010LP, both of which look like a traditional Dustbuster. None has the reach of our main pick, and though these models do have more raw suction than our budget pick, we don’t think they provide enough of a real-world cleaning advantage to justify the extra cost. But your mileage may vary, so if you’re not excited about the hose on our main pick, don’t want to splurge on our upgrade pick, and think you’ll need more suction for heavier debris than our budget pick can provide, check one of these out—the Max Lithium Pivot model is particularly popular and highly rated on Amazon.

Black+Decker also makes more than a dozen Dustbuster-style hand models that look a lot like our budget pick, the CHV1410L. They have similar body shapes, but their suction, battery life, charging times, and prices vary. The one that’s closest to our pick is the CHV1410L32, which has about the same suction, price, and charging time as the CHV1410L but charges through a jack plug rather than on a base. Some other models may be cheaper, like the HLVA315J and HLVA320J, but they’re also weaker and take more than twice as long to charge compared with the CHV1410L. A handful of models, including the HHVJ320B and the HHVJ325B, have stronger suction and longer battery life on paper, but they cost extra and the real-world benefits are pretty marginal.

We also tested the Dirt Devil Quick Flip Plus BD30025B, which looks a lot like our budget pick in terms of specs, price, and owner reviews. It’s also one of the cheapest handhelds with a mini motorized brush roll. But this Dirt Devil model had much weaker suction. The eponymous “quick flip” tool (essentially a mini crevice tool) was also too small to suck up anything larger than a pea.

We considered testing the Bissell Bolt Lithium Max Pet Hand Vacuum 2133, but it usually costs more than most handhelds with similar specs and comes with fewer tools.

The Black+Decker Dustbuster Hand Vacuum CHV1510 and Shark Cordless Pet Perfect II Hand Vac SV780 are a couple of other popular models with relatively strong suction for not much money. But they still run on old NiCd batteries, which is an absolute dealbreaker these days. NiCd batteries are particularly awful because the vacs start to lose suction about halfway through their run time, they completely lose their charge after a couple of months, and they suffer from the memory effect.

Beyond those models, we dismissed a couple dozen truly low-end vacuums from Bissell, Dirt Devil, Electrolux, Hoover, and Moneual because they had either very low-voltage batteries, inexplicably high prices, or poor owner reviews.

In a previous version of this guide, we recommended the Eureka Easy Clean Hand Vac 71B, a plug-in handheld vacuum with a permanent brush roll. We liked this vacuum just fine, and nothing has changed in that regard. We just don’t think readers are as interested in corded models. You might also consider the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Corded Handheld Vacuum 33A1B, a similar model with good owner ratings, but one that we haven’t tested.

A few readers have asked us about handheld wet/dry vacs from Black+Decker, DeWalt, and Milwaukee. We have not tested them, but the owner ratings are solid, and they appear to be well-suited for cleaning up the type of metal debris you’d find near a workbench that could wreck the types of handhelds we recommend in this guide. We may review this category in the future.

As for the hand vacs that plug into the AC port (formerly known as the cigarette lighter) in a car, well, a car battery supplies only 12 volts, so those vacs are much, much weaker than any of the models we recommend. And you can’t use them for other jobs around the house. One of those vacs might make sense to keep in your car for midshift tidy-ups if you’re an Uber driver. But we think those plug-in models aren’t the best bet for most people.

A few readers have asked about the Makita 18-Volt LXT, which is relatively cheap with some solid owner reviews. The voltage isn’t quite what we’d like to see from a contender for our top pick, but more important, it’s more of a stick vacuum than a handheld, so it’s not something we’d consider recommending in this guide.