Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car review: A cordless stick vacuum cleaner that sucks harder than a Dyson

Until the Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 arrived, Dyson could confidently argue that it had the most powerful cordless stick vacuum cleaners around.

Tefal rates its suction lower than the Dyson Gen5detect, but the Dyson cut out at a suction pressure of 31kPa, while the Tefal reached 31.5kPa before quitting. Having said that, while suction is a key metric when it comes to how good a cordless vacuum cleaner is, it certainly isn’t the be-all and end-all.

So in this review, I’ll put the Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 through Expert Reviews’ usual barrage of real-world cleaning tests to help establish which vacuum cleaner is superior.

Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car review: What do you get for the money?

The Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 is part of the manufacturer’s X-Force Flex range, which differentiates models by their quoted suction power, run time and accessories.

At the most affordable end of the range, the Tefal X-Force Flex 12.60 Car has an RRP of £350, suction quoted at up to 150AW and a battery life of 45 minutes. It comes with an upholstery tool, a crevice tool and a wall mount. There’s also a Pet & Car version (£380), which adds in the Animal Turbo Brush, a handy miniature motorised head that’s useful for pet hair on upholstery and is great for smaller spaces such as stairs.

Next is the Tefal X-Force Flex 14.60 Pet & Car (£430). This comes with everything you’d find in the 12.60 Pet & Car while increasing the suction power to 200AW and upping battery life to a quoted 1hr 10mins.

The X-Force Flex 15.60 sits at the top of the range and has the same core attachments but also comes with a handy flexible extension hose and a stand that can be used as an alternative to screwing the charging mount into a wall. The vertical pole that connects the charging station to the base also happens to be an additional extension wand. Suction is rated at up to 230AW and a battery life is quoted as 1hr 20mins.

When assembled in its standard configuration the vacuum measures 24.7 x 29.3 x 113.5cm (WDH) and weighs 3.4kg. Of that, the handheld unit weighs 2.1kg, which is a fair heft and similar in weight to the Dyson Gen5detect. The floor head only weighs 0.8kg, so the whole unit is top-heavy. It also means that the wand itself is over 500g with the addition of its flexible joint, which is capable of bending 90 degrees.

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Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car review: What’s it like to use? 

Controlling the Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 is straightforward. The vacuum is switched on and off using a trigger on the inside of the handle. You don’t have to hold it down to keep the power running, you simply click it once to switch on and click it again to switch off. There’s a second trigger just beyond this. It puts the vacuum into Boost mode for a few seconds, so you can get maximum suction power quickly and easily.

For everything else you need to use the main controls. These are three rubberised buttons positioned within easy access of your thumb. When the vacuum is first switched on it will be in Auto mode, which means it will adjust its power depending on whether it thinks it’s on carpet (where the suction is increased) or hard floor.

The first button on the left lets you take over the power settings, cycling through Eco, Eco+, Max and Boost. The middle button is labelled Auto and is used to switch between manual and Auto mode. The last button has a battery icon on it and toggles the screen above it between displaying the percentage of battery remaining or the estimated run time. The battery button can also be used while the device is charging to see how it’s getting on, or there are three LEDs on the battery itself that light up to give a rough idea of the current charge.

In use, the cleaner is relatively comfortable to hold with the wand and floor head attached. As I’ve mentioned, when it’s in Auto mode, the suction is increased when it’s on carpet and decreased on hard floor. This is useful for picking up dirt but I found it a little too powerful on carpet, with the suction adding a layer of resistance to the movement. It also tended to pick up smaller mats that didn’t have enough weight to keep them in place. You can counteract this by lowering the suction manually but I would have preferred to have the suction power moderated more appropriately when it’s in its automated setting.

The powerful suction is of particular interest, though, as I touched upon at the start of this review. According to my measurements, the suction of the Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 is more powerful than the suction on Dyson’s most powerful cordless stick, the Dyson Gen5detect, at the point that it cuts out. This doesn’t tell the whole story, as both vacuums shut down when they meet this amount of suction resistance, but the Tefal’s ability to marginally surpass the Dyson, which costs significantly more, is nothing to be sniffed at. It’s all the more impressive when compared to the suction of other rivals.

Having powerful suction is one thing, but it’s not much use if the battery doesn’t last long enough to use it. While the 15.60 appears to suck as hard as a Dyson, it can’t maintain that level of power for even half as long. In my tests, the Dyson Gen5detect can maintain full power for 12mins 42secs. The Tefal, meanwhile, can’t make it past the six-minute mark.

You could argue that you shouldn’t need to run a vacuum on its highest setting for that long – it’s not intended for everyday cleaning but for when you need that extra blast of power. However, using this model on its highest setting for a few minutes isn’t going to leave you with much run time for anything else.

In Eco mode, it lasts a considerable time. Here there were more than 70 minutes on my stopwatch before it conked out, which is 15 minutes longer than the Dyson Gen5detect. You’ll have to manually select this or only vacuum hard floor to get the most out of it, but there aren’t many cordless sticks that can keep running for longer than an hour. 

In handheld mode, it’s a little on the heavy side for use at arm’s length, but it performed well with its attachments. Removing the clip-on elements such as the extension wand and the powered attachments is simple, as is pushing them back in again. Having dusting brushes integrated into every join is a good time saver too, as you’ll never need to dig a dusting attachment out when you need it.

Although the device can’t stand upright without support when the handheld unit is connected to the extension wand, the wand can be locked into an upright position on the floor head. This means that when you remove the heavy main unit, the wand will stay upright without you needing to find somewhere to lean it.

Removing and replacing the collection bin is equally smooth, with a button on the front that releases the top, and a hook at the bottom that holds the bin in place. Reversing the process is just as easy, as long as you remember to position the base of the bin onto the hook first, then push the top into place.

Emptying isn’t quite as straightforward. You have to manually remove the filter system from the top of the collection bin, which requires a twist and lift motion. This can pull some dirt out with it, so it all needs doing over the receptacle the dirt is going to end up in. Once that’s done, however, you can tip the contents of the collection cup into your dustbin. I found it usually fell out neatly.

There’s also the question of hair tangles. The X-Force Flex 15.60 claims to reduce tangling thanks to its large brush bar, but I found it still collected enough on a single clean of my carpets to need removing and clearing of tangles. This isn’t particularly problematic, as the brush bar can be removed from the floor head without resorting to tools. However, you then have to snip tangles off with scissors and remove them manually. If you’re used to the sort of anti-tangle devices built into Shark, Dyson and Hoover vacuum cleaners, you’re likely to find this annoying.

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Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car review: How well does it clean?

As you can see from the chart below, it performed admirably. While the overall results were mostly better than we saw from the Hoover HF9, it doesn’t use its suction as well as the Dyson Gen5detect or the Shark Stratos IZ400UKT.

I test cordless stick vacuum cleaners with measured quantities of Cheerios, flour and pet hair, on both carpet and hard floor. By weighing how much of the measured spillage each vacuum can pick up on a single pass, I get a good indication of how well it cleans when compared to its rivals.

Powerful suckers usually perform well in the flour test but the Tefal left a dusting behind on hard floor, falling slightly behind the Dyson’s performance. Dyson has an advantage here because the Tefal doesn’t have a soft roller option, which can help collect those last few specks. The Tefal also left a trace of flour behind on the carpet.

Cheerios were more problematic. On carpet, the device rode over the Cheerios but the enthusiastic brush bar pulverised the particles, sending the bits flying before the suction could trap them. On hard floor, it managed to capture more Cheerios than I was expecting for a device without a soft roller, but it still smashed and scattered them. Still, in all these tests, the Tefal cleaner performed well above average.

In our pet hair test, the Tefal did well, too. It managed better on carpet, where the additional agitation helped keep the brush bar clear. On hard floor, some of the hair got stuck on the bristles, and even the powerful suction couldn’t lift it off. It still managed to transfer 98% of the pet hair from the hard floor into the collection bin, though.

Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car review: Verdict

The Tefal X-Force Flex 15.60 Pet & Car is a well-constructed vacuum cleaner with a good complement of accessories and attachments. It performed well above average in our tests and has suction that rivals Dyson’s much more expensive top-of-the-range model.

There are, however, a few shortfalls. It only has a simple brush bar floor head and doesn’t have a soft roller option. Although hard floor performance was still good, a soft roller would probably push it into excellent. It also doesn’t feature any significant tangle-clearing mechanisms. If you live in a house with long-haired people or pets, this is going to mean you’ll have to clean the roller out fairly regularly. This feels unnecessary when other manufacturers seem to have this problem solved.

For a similar price to the Tefal, the obvious alternative is the Shark Stratos IZ400UKT which performs even better than the Dyson. It comes with a dual roller floor head and also has an anti-tangle mechanism so doesn’t require regular roller clearing. The Hoover HF9 is a closer proposition to the Tefal, with a single brush roller and no fluffy hard floor option. However, it’s more affordable, costing £293 at the time of writing. It doesn’t come with quite as many options to attach and dust with, but it’s a decent vacuum cleaner for the price.