Hoover Xarion Green Ray TXG 1210

This vacuum cleaner is the top of Hoover's range but also has its lowest energy consumption.  We're glad to see that manufacturers have realised that excellent products should be as energy efficient as possible.

The specs only list consumption of 1200 W, and we only measured 1000 W in our lab, but the Xarion should be as powerful as the rest of the range.

The colour scheme echoes the green credentials, in complementary green and white, and immediately had us thinking of Buzz Lightyear, with the same futuristic curves and matching colours.  We're convinced that Hoover's design team is a secret Toy Story fan.  Kids loved the look, and shared our opinion.  So that's the first piece of good news: the Xarion Green Ray is already part of the family.

Ease of use


The next piece of good news was the filter, which sits inside a very fragile cage that we weren't too happy about moving too often.  It's flexible, though, and according to Hoover, only needs to be cleaned once a year.  If the Green Ray lives up to its manufacturer's promises, then keeping it ticking over should be much easier than some of its competitors which we found disappointingly complex to maintain.


The handle is a little bit special, and a lot of people who tried it out found it hard.  The manual switch is a little tough, and the metal handle underneath is used to release the telescopic tube.

We were very glad to see a flap on the side of the bin, which makes it easier to avoid getting dust and dirt everywhere when you're emptying it.  It's a small button that you press, pull back, allowing the flap to open nice and wide, allowing everything out.  Another good feature is that reaching the filters—even if you don't have to do it very often—is very easy.  Unusually, Hoover also asks that you wash the second Hepa filter, which most of its competitors guarantee for the life of their vacuum cleaners.


We do have a few criticisms too: it wasn't long before we found a few small problems with the manufacturing.  For example, you have to push a handle down when replacing the bin which is then held in place by two flaps.  We kept on finding one or the other got in the way of fitting the bin back.

The white plastic used for lots of the outside didn't live up to the rough and tumble of everyday life very well, quickly getting dirty and scratched.  There's also the plastic cage that holds the first filter which really didn't inspire much confidence.  Don't let your kids play with it as it'll be broken within minutes.


Suction

Before we even started our lab tests, we turned it on two things leapt to our attention: firstly, it's quieter than a Dyson, and secondly, it's less powerful than average.  It does suck in air and dirt—that's not the problem—it just does so less powerfully than we're used to, even when at its top setting.

Our tests with rice confined this: it took 9 seconds to fill the 1.5 l bin.  If you compare that to the usual 2 l standard that we use for its rivals, you'd need to wait 12 seconds to fill the 2 l bin on the Rowenta RO8049 or the Dyson DC19.  It seems that Hoover's bet didn't pay off: the energy consumption is down, but the raw performance can't match a traditional vacuum cleaner.

Surface	Score
Lino
Floorboards
Carpet tile
Deep-pile carpet

Unsurprisingly, the reduced suction power made work on difficult surfaces like carpets and rugs particularly difficult.

It took six passes before we got up all of the hair from the carpet.  Despite a special brush that's supposed to work on both carpet and hard floors, this isn't the hoover for you if you have fitted carpet throughout.

Noise

The 71 dB we measured is a lot less than the 78 dB Hoover claimed.  The noise levels are moderate and not aggressive, except if something goes wrong.  If you hoover too much too quickly, it gets blocked.  We managed to do this accidentally on a number of occasions and the noise level climbed to over 80 dB.

Energy Consumption

At full power and with the bin empty, the Xarion Green Ray doesn't use the 1200 W Hoover claims it does, but instead required just 1050 W!  You can compare that to the 1700 W used by the LG Kompressor VK9820NHB, the 1360 W used by the Dyson DC19 or even the 2000 W on the Rowenta RO8049.


Using 400-1000 W less than the competition is a very good thing indeed, and it will certainly go some way to compensating for the reduced suction power.  It's especially worthwhile if you only have hard floors at home, like lino, laminate or floorboards, where you'll be less affected by the more modest suction.

Emptying and Cleaning

The flap that closes the dust bin isn't very useful, and it could certainly be further up, like on the Dyson DC32, so emptying the bin doesn't end being back-breaking work, but it's still cleaner and more useful than bins that open at the top.


During our tests, we only had one small problem.  The soft motor filter gained two grams from the start of our tests to the end.  It's certainly not much, but it's still not zero, so some dust clearly escaped the bin.  Both the Dyson DC19 and the Rowenta Intensium RO6629 did better, weighing exactly the same before and after our tests.  That left us wondering if asking consumers to wash the filters once a year, as Hoover suggests, might be a little optimistic.  We would personally do it once a month!  Otherwise, you'll have to put up with gradually losing suction power over time, despite the Xarion's bold claims about constant performance—you only get that when the filters are clean!

We then tried washing the filters to try our tests again.  This is where things really went wrong: it seems we weren't careful enough to make the Hepa filter was totally dry, so on our second run, the filter got 20 g of dirt and dust stuck.  The second filter also got clogged up.