When someone mentions stick vacuums, most of us immediately think of one brand in our mind - Dyson. And this has been with good reason, up until now.
There are numerous brands releasing their own version of these handy cordless vacuum cleaners and some of them can are actually quite powerful, and even better, cost-effective. The Dibea D18 is one of those stick vac models that really takes it up to the other big names on the market - and for under half the price!
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Detailed Review
The D18 was very easy to set up straight out of the box and only required a few easy steps before it was ready to use. All the parts simply clicked together - there is no tools required at all.
All the parts fit together nice and snug with no discernable movement where there shouldn't be any.
The charging procedure is as simple as it gets: simply plug the provided charger into the back of the unit. I only had one small complaint here and that is that the wall mount base does not automatically plug the charger in when you hang the stick vacuum on it like the Dyson units do. You have to manually plug in the charger, instead of it automatically charging whenever it is on the wall mount.
Charging the battery from dead flat takes around 4 - 5 hours to full charge. There is also a handy 3 bar indicator on the back of the vacuum that makes it easy to see at what level charge the battery is at while in use or charging.
Cleaning Ability
The D18 is quiet... so quiet that I was worried it wouldnt have enough power to do anything useful! When measured (with an Android phone app) from a distance of 12 inches away, on low power it comes in at 60dB, and in High power, it measured a max level of 64dB. I compared this to my Dyson DC44 and the difference was quite large, it measured 65dB on low power and 70dB on high power. Now these levels might not seem this different when you look at the numbers, but they are quite noticeable.
But my concerns about its cleaning power were quickly alleviated. While it might not have as much actual suction as its more expensive counterparts, it has a well designed motorized turbine head that leaves nothing behind! In fact, I even found it picking up bits of mess on the carpet that the DC44 left behind.
I did mention that the actual suction is not great, but the crevice tool and the bristle brush that come with the unit are well designed and they both work quite well. although I get frustrated by the lack of suction when not using any tool at all (with or without the metal tube attached).
When it came to emptying the catcher I was surprised at the amount of dust, dirt and other items it had picked up. Especially considering that I had not long before gone over the area with our Dyson unit. Empyting and cleaning the catcher was very easy and the washable dust filter is easy to get to and clean.
Battery Life
The D18's battery is quite small hidden away in the handle. In fact, you probably won't even be able to tell where it is.
Despite its small size, the 22.2 volt, 2,200mAh battery holds quite a bit of charge and on high power, it lasted just under 22 minutes of non-stop vacuuming before going flat. This should be ample time to vacuum most areas of a standard sized house.
Confused by battery specifications? Check out our handy guide here.
When ran on low power mode, the battery lasted 42 minutes before the it went dead fla t.
Check Price on Gear Best NowThis vacuum was super easy to use, the motorized head is connected to the shaft via a nifty swivel device and I had no problem maneuvering it around obstacles and furniture.
I don't think I have mentioned yet that this stick vacuum has headlights.....that's right. A vacuum cleaner with headlights. These are made up of 4 LED's build into the power brush. At first, I thought it was a gimmick and all it would do is make the battery life shorter. But the LED headlights are actually quite bright and surprisingly useful! When vacuuming in a dark area (such as under furniture or in poorly lit rooms), the ground level headlights quickly highlighted hard to see mess and dirt.
The D18 also has a bit of a different trigger function that you might be used to. Pull the trigger once, then let it go, and the vacuum turns onto low power. Pull the trigger again and it goes to high power mode. So there was no need to hold the trigger down the whole time while vacuuming. Users who suffer from arthritis or low hand strength will really appreciate this feature.
Overall the quality of this vacuum is quite good. The plastic parts feel very sturdy and should be able to take almost anything you can throw at it, and the metal tube is scuff resistant and very strong.
There really was only one issue that I noticed and was the small plastic wheels on the bottom of the power brush. They do make a noticeable rattling sound which can be heard over the motor noise occasionally when vacuuming the floor. While this was annoying, it did not affect the cleaning functionality at all.
Coming in at just under $120 on GearBest, the price of the Dibea D18 is surprisingly low for the functionality you get out of this stick vacuum.
Where To Buy
The Dibea D18 stick vacuum is available from GearBest.
Check Price on Gear Best Now
