Hoover Upright Vacuum Cleaner, Red - Upright 300

Product Information

It’s a little less powerful than the competition, although I found using the hard floorhead more than made up for this on short-pile carpet. If you want something cheap but good, then this is a neat option. I have the standard model here, but it’s also available as the H-Upright 300 Pet Edition with a mini-motorised tool. Both versions are available in blue or red. Design and features There’s a tendency for vacuum cleaner manufacturers to make ever more expensive and complicated cleaners. The Hoover H-Upright 300 offers a tonic to that formula: it’s a cheaper, lighter upright cleaner that gets all of the basics right. The Hoover H-Upright 300 is a fairly basic model, with a single rotating brush in its floor head. You can switch this on and off, depending on the surface you’re cleaning; Hoover recommends you switch it off when cleaning floors and deep pile rugs.

Safety First! Please make sure your appliance is switched off before beginning any maintenance work. I also struggled with moving the vacuum from hard floor onto rugs or door mats. The front of the device is quite low to the ground and it struggled with even small changes in elevation, crumpling and pushing away the rug rather than climbing up the edge. The collection bin has a generous 1.5-litre capacity and is easily released from the chassis for emptying. It also contains the filters, which are washable in water and rated to the HEPA H13 standard. Take it from me, as a veteran vacuum cleaner unboxer, that some are a tad time-consuming. Lots of parts wrapped in plastic and assembly instructions with pictures only. This vacuum, on the other hand, only needed its handle slotting in and the two attachments to be put in their place on the machine and it was ready to go. Tools on board and therefore always to hand is great, and also scoring points from me is the fact that the instructions have clear words as well as drawings. And much as I like cordless machines, being able to plug in and start rather than wait for a battery to charge has a lot to be said for it.

The Hoover H-Upright 300 cleans well and won’t break the bank, but it’s better on carpet than hard floor

Once you’ve finished cleaning, the bin lifts out of the cleaner, and you can flip open the bottom to empty dirt quite easily. There’s one filter here and a another in the cleaner, both of which should be cleaned with water to maintain maximum suction. Performance Approaching the mess from different angles and giving the H-Upright 300 a few more sweeps soon collected most of the mess, with just the crevice tool needed for the tiny particles remaining right at the edge. Cleaning performance is also determined by the tools included with a cleaner. Lower suction power can often be negated with the use of decent tools that agitate dirt. To test this out, I ran my normal cleaning tests.

Another downside for me was the machine’s reach under furniture. The bulk of its body means the floorhead doesn’t fit far under a bed, for example, and we all know the pet hair makes its way there as well. Having to swap to using the hose plus attachment or hose, handle and attachment combo makes the job take longer. Hoover Upright 300 Pets on carpets, hard flooring and upholstery Carpets and rugs The dust capacity of this vacuum cleaner is 1.5 L, allowing for extended cleaning sessions without the need for frequent emptying. The dust container is also designed to be bagless, eliminating the need for disposable bags and reducing waste.

Hoover Spares & Accessories

The Hoover is reasonably light for a corded model, weighing just 4.94kg. This is lighter than its similarly priced competitors, with the Shark DuoClean with Lift-Away NV702UK weighing 5.25kg and the Dyson Small Ball Allergy a hefty 6.9kg. It’s easier to carry around but isn’t small, standing at over a metre tall (1,147 x 300 x 320mm). The mains cord is 8.1m long and there’s a built-in hose for connecting the attachments to, which stretches to 2m. READ NEXT: These are the best robot vacuum cleaners to buy today Hoover H-Upright 300 review: Should I buy it?

There’s a power button on top of the dust bin, plus a button next to it that disables the motorised brush bar. That’s good to see, since cleaning hard floors and deep-pile carpet can be difficult with the brush spinning. I didn’t really want to attempt a conversation when I was vacuuming with the Hoover Upright 300 Pets, and I especially didn’t want to when I was using the motorised mini turbo brush – the pet hair tool. Bear this in mind if your animal housemates are sensitive to loud noise. Next up is gaps in the air flow. This hose is in pretty good condition, but over time the plastic can degrade and rub against parts of the machine and you can end up with something looking like this. Now this is a pretty extreme example, but even the smallest of holes can cause a loss of suction.A more difficult test is my carpet tile test, where I sprinkle flour right up to the skirting board. With the H-Upright 300 set to hard floor mode, it left a trace amount of dust behind, as you can see from the images below.