Using the felt strip though, our red carpet test proved revealing. Covered with a mix of talc, baking powder and carpet freshener granules, the H-Free did a great job out on open carpet in just a single pass. A light and fairly small hose clips over the handle for storage. The upper part of the handle offers a six-position height adjustment including slotting completely down into the lower half. To use the hose and detail tools, you have to pop up a slightly awkward clip on the floor-head and press and turn the hose into place.

Not everyone needs a top-of-line, do everything cordless vacuum cleaner. For some, a cheaper, less powerful model will likely fulfil most needs. Step forward the Hoover H-Free 300 (HF322PT), then: a well-priced cordless cleaner with a removable battery, pet tools and a great range of accessories. While you can attach the main floorhead directly to the body, it’s just a bit too deep and cumbersome to be truly easy to use on steps. That is made worse Chez Stevenson due to the angled steps that form two major turns on the way up. There is a traditional bristle brush bar in the floor-head that rotates quite powerfully on the carpet mode, and is stationary on the hard floor setting. Likewise, the bar doesn’t rotate in Eco mode –which, combined with lower suction power and switching off the LED light, saves power and increases run-time. The H-Free has two power settings, which are normal and a high-power mode labelled carpet. Unusually, the cleaner defaults to the highest power setting rather than the lower power or remembering the last used setting. That is a bit of a pain when dusting and you want low power, as every time you switch off to move the ornaments, you need to press the carpet switch to reduce the power when you start up again. Still, the correct power is only a button-press away. I didn’t find the Hoover H-Free 300 too loud, either, coming in at 67.9dB on Low, 69.5dB on Medium and 74.9 on Turbo. That makes this one of the quietest cordless vacuum cleaners I’ve tested.Sound levels weren’t too bad: I measured the Hoover H-Free 500 at 78.8dB maximum on regular mode and 84.3dB on Turbo mode. This compares well with the competition. Should you buy the Hoover H-Free 500? You can get cover for your appliance against the surprise costs of accidental damage and breakdown with protection policy. For this, we're proud to work with Domestic & General Insurance PLC who protect, fix and if needed replace the things that keep your home running. A blue light illuminates on the head on the higher power setting when the brush bar is running. This goes red if the brush bar gets jammed in rug tassels, for example. Heading out over different carpets and rugs around the home, the Hoover delivered a reasonably good clean, pulling up pet hair and titbits easily. Suction to the floor-head isn’t the strongest, so much of the good cleaning here is due to the effective brush bar and design of the floor-head in concentrating the suction. Either way, the C300 works well as an upright vacuum over the carpet.

Controls are easy to use on this Hoover vacuum cleaner. You squeeze the trigger to turn the vacuum on and squeeze it again to power it off. This kind of design is less tiring to use than models that require you to keep the trigger depressed throughout cleaning.Lightweight, cord-free and good suction power are key ingredients of a great stair-cleaning vacuum but the H-Free does want for a tool to make the most of those talents.

The true mark of any vacuum cleaner is its ability to clean well. I start my tests by measuring the power in AirWatts of each mode. I measured the cleaner at 29.13AW on Low power, 64.47AW on Medium power and 118.66AW on Turbo. The Medium and Turbo speeds are similar to the Dyson V11 Outsize’s results on Eco and Medium power settings, and then the Dyson has a Turbo mode that more than doubles the power. Grey in colour and complemented with the deep-red Hoover logo on the front, the H-Free C300 looks neat and compact for an upright cleaner. With hard-floor, carpet and Eco modes, it promises comprehensive floor cleaning around the home and a super-long run-time – up to an hour on the Eco setting. Buttons are located conveniently on the front, below the telescopic handle that doubles as an extension tube for extra reach when using the detail tool. For darker areas, there are three LED lights on the front of the floor-head although, strangely, they only come on in carpet mode. With the growing trend for hard floors like laminates, this seems an odd way of setting up the lights, particularly as we find LEDs most useful for spotting pet hair on hard floors. Sadly, the lights are pretty dull so their function is more decorative than useful anyway. As you might expect with such a compact vacuum cleaner, the cylinder is a bit smaller on the Hoover than the Dyson V8 Animal and the Shark IZ201UK, which means you’ll need to empty it more often. Hoover H-Free 500: out the boxThe C300 cordless vacuum cleaner from Hoover houses all its workings, including motor, battery and filters, in the floor-head. That really makes it a cordless upright cleaner with no hand-held cleaning option, although you do get a tube, detail tools and a handle that doubles as an extension tube. The accessories clip on-board, and with the telescopic handle fully down, it’s compact and easy to store in low cupboards such as under the sink. The last Hoover cordless model we tested wasn’t up to much. The company rushed out the Hoover Freedom FD22G by buying a design ‘off the shelf’’ and badging it Hoover. The H-Free HF18RH is a different kettle of cleaning potential altogether. The design has been well thought through, there are plenty of must-have features and it comes with plenty of tools. The low power mode transpired to be pretty asthmatic when the air flow was spread out across the entire floorhead. Keep the H-Free in high power (‘carpet’) mode and its hard-floor cleaning abilities are solid. However, if you don't stumble across their products on sale, they are more likely to be a little bit more expensive than the Hoover H-Free 500. How does the Hoover H-Free 500 age? As we’ve mentioned, the Hoover won’t provide the same suction power as one of the more recent Dyson models.