One-minute review
AEG may not be a name that’s synonymous with vacuum cleaners, but it’s been producing floor care appliances since 1913, and all that experience has been channelled into producing some of the best vacuum cleaners you can buy, with high-end specs but more affordable price tags than machines from rivals like Dyson and Miele.
The AEG QX6 is the brand’s latest cordless vacuum cleaner. It can lay almost flat on the floor and has an articulating head with LED lights, making it well suited to cleaning under furniture with low clearance, and in nooks and crannies. It has an ergonomic handle, and the main unit, which comprises the motor and 0.3-litre dust canister, is located in the lower half of the cleaner, making it easy to manoeuvre.
The main unit can also be lifted out and used as a handheld vacuum cleaner – in this mode the handle curves around the main unit, so it’s comfortable to hold whether you’re using it to clean down low or up high.
The AEG QX6 Animal has a five-step filtration system with a washable filter, which the brand says captures 99% of dust, hair, and allergens as small as 0.1microns in size. It’s powered by a built-in rechargeable battery that AEG says will last up to 45 minutes, and has two power settings, although with a maximum of 27W of suction power it can’t compete with more expensive cordless cleaners such as the Dyson V15 Detect when it comes to sucking up dust and debris in a single pass.
The AEG QX6 Animal comes with a crevice tool that can be stored in the stick of the cordless cleaner, and a motorised tool that’s designed to be used in handheld mode to collect pet hair and fibres from upholstery.
Compared to other cordless vacuums, the AEG QX6 Animal is relatively wallet-friendly at £219.99 and will be best suited to those who want an affordable cordless vacuum that’s easy to manoeuvre.
AEG QX6 Animal price and availability
The AEG QX6 Animal is priced at £219.99, and is available from AEG’s website as well as online retailers including Appliances Direct and Amazon.
AEG also offers two other models of the QX6 cordless vacuum cleaner. The QX6-1-46DB, which is priced at £199.99, comes with four tools and the same LED-toting cleaner head as the QX6 Animal, but not the motorised pet brush. The QX6-1-40OG costs £169.99, and comes with just two tools, and doesn’t have the LED on the cleaner head.
Design
- 0.3-litre dust bin
- Comes with one floor head and two tools including a motorised pet brush
- Converts into a handheld cleaner
The AEG QX6 looks slightly different to many cordless stick vacuums on the market. Rather than having a wand that detaches from the motor and dust canister, the main unit sits at the bottom of the vacuum cleaner, and connects directly to the floor cleaning heading.
A long handle, which forms the ‘stick’ element of the vacuum cleaner, is located above the main unit. An indent at the top of the handle provides a place for your fingers to rest comfortably when you’re cleaning, and opposite this are the power button and power level selector. The battery is built into the main unit, and the remaining power level is indicated by three LEDs on the unit.
The main unit also has a smaller built-in handle, which comes into use when the unit is removed from the floor head and stick assembly to be used as a handheld device, with either of the two tools it ships with. As well as a crevice nozzle, the version of the QX6 we tested also comes with a motorised pet brush.
At 4kg, the QX6 Animal is one of the heavier cordless vacuum cleaners we’ve tested. It ships with a floor cleaning head that’s articulated, enabling the cleaner to lay almost completely flat so that it can reach under low-clearance furniture. The floor head also has an LED light to improve visibility when you’re vacuuming in dark corners, and features a button that activates a mechanism that will automatically remove hair or fibers tangled in the brush roll, sending them to the 0.3-litre dust canister.
Performance
- Performed best on hard floors
- Freestanding
- Quiet in use
The AEG QX6 Animal performed best on hard floors when it came to collecting fine dust on both suction levels. While it glided easily on both hard floors and carpets, in our tests, we were left disappointed with its carpet-cleaning ability – we found there was still dust left after one sweep on both power settings.
Similarly, when it came to large debris, the cordless cleaner struggled to suck up cereal towards the edges and back end of the floor cleaning head – we ended up having to push it around the floor, which made the task of cleaning a little longer more involved than we’d have liked. We liked that the vacuum cleaner is freestanding, so we didn’t have to find somewhere to rest it when we wanted to take a break from cleaning.
We were impressed by how simple it was to use the vacuum in handheld mode – you simply need to pull lightly on the handle of the main unit to lift it away from its housing between the stick and cleaning head, and it can then be used with either the crevice tool or the motorised pet hair tool.
We found the process of emptying the QX6 was a little more involved than with most cordless vacuum cleaners: the canister first needs to be ejected from the main unit, and then you have to remove the filter and tip the canister upside down. We prefer dust canisters that have a ‘point and shoot’ button that ejects the dust automatically as it creates less mess. However, the dust canister and filter are washable, which is a bonus.
The automatic brush roll cleaning feature proved to be handy, shredding and sucking up a hair brush’s worth of human hair that was stuck around the brush roller, and saving us from having to pick it out ourselves. It’s also one of the quietest vacuums we’ve tested, measuring a maximum of 73db on our decibel meter – roughly the equivalent of traffic noise when you’re walking down the road.
Battery life
- Ranges from 13 to 45 minutes depending on the power setting
- Battery takes 4.5 hours to fully recharge
- Can only be charged using the stand
The battery lasts up to 45 minutes between charges, but that’s on the lowest power setting; if the cleaner is used on the most powerful setting the battery life drops to just 13 minutes. The QX6 Animal can only be charged using the bundled floor stand, so if you’re tight on space this may cause a problem. The LED lights on the front go some way to helping you to identify when the battery needs charging, but we’d ideally have liked to see the remaining run-time displayed in minutes – a feature that’s offered by some vacuums, such as the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute.
Should I buy the AEG QX6 Animal?
Buy it if…
You’re on a budget
At just a little over £200, this is one of the more affordable cordless vacuums that we’ve tested that can also double as a handheld cleaner.
You want an easy-to-manoeuvre vacuum
The AEG QX6 Animal glided easily over both hard floors and carpets. It’s lightweight and has an ergonomic handle, so if you like to put minimal effort into your cleaning this is a good choice.
You hate removing hair from the brush roll
For us, the automatic brush roll cleaning feature is a game-changer if you often have to spend time unpicking human or pet hair that’s become wrapped around the brush roller.
Don’t buy it if…
You have carpets
While the AEG QX6 Animal performed well on hard floors, it struggled to collect fine dust on carpets, so if you have a mix of floors in your home this might be a cordless cleaner to avoid.
You want a clear battery level indication
Hate your vacuum running out of battery mid-clean? Then avoid this vacuum cleaner, as we found the LED lights on the front weren’t very accurate when it came to indicating how much run-time was left.
You have a large home
The AEG QX6 Animal has one of the smallest dust canisters in the market, so if you have a large home you’ll be constantly interrupting your floor-cleaning sessions to empty the canister.
First reviewed: June 2021
