In this review we’ll be looking at an affordable cordless vacuum that seems to be selling quite well online: the Belife BVC11. We purchased one and put it through all kinds of tests, both at the Vacuum War studio and at our house. In this review, we’ll go over all the pros and cons.
About the Belife Cordless (BVC11)
The Belife BVC11 is a first-generation Belife stick vacuum. It is squarely aimed at the budget segment and has reasonably good reviews on Amazon.
Pros
Starting off with the pros, the most obvious good thing about this Belife cordless vacuum is its price. It’s definitely in the budget category for cordless vacuums.
Power
It also has really good power for the price. Our measurements showed its airflow at the base and head are right around average or maybe just a little above average. But, it’s a different story altogether where raw suction power is concerned. Our tests showed raw suction at the base was off the charts at around 113 inches.
This is not only well above average, but it’s also the same or even a bit more than some Dyson cordless vacuums. That suction power means it’s really good with above-floor cleaning tasks with its two attachments, but more on that in the cons section.
Cleaning Carpet and Hard Floors
The Belife BVC11 was good at picking up debris from the surface of hard floors and carpets, vacuuming up everything from fine to medium-sized debris very well. We vacuumed cereal, pet litter and fine debris all without much issue.
It did struggle a little bit with larger debris on hard floors, especially with extra-large debris. Almost all cordless vacuums have a similar limit to the size of what they can pick up on hard floors.
Moving to carpet we found that it was a little better with picking up larger debris. Overall, we thought it did its main job of picking stuff up off the surface of floors really well.
Ergonomics
We liked its handle, which felt well-balanced. It also had a very responsive swivel on the floor head, which made maneuvering easier in tight spaces.
It also has LED lights on the floor head, which we’re big fans of.
LED Display
The Belife BVC11 has some nice electronic features such as a touchscreen where you can change the power to low, medium, or max power. It has a battery life indicator light in the form of a colored wheel, as well as two alert lights.
One alert light indicates that an air channel is blocked and the other that the brushroll is tangled.
Replacement Batteries
Another thing we really liked with the BVC11 is that not only is the battery removable, but the company sells them and they’re usually in-stock. It seems strange, but we’ve noticed that many companies selling cheap vacuums that compete with the BVC11 don’t sell replacement batteries for some reason.
At the time of writing this review they also sold the vacuum packaged with either one or two batteries.
One-Touch Trigger
We also liked the One-Touch trigger system for starting and stopping the vacuum. You don’t have to hold down the trigger the whole time you’re using it; you can just touch it once to start and once to stop.
Belife is one of many companies that noted complaints about the trigger design on the Dyson V15 (review) and several other Dyson models.
Brushroll Design
Belife’s brush roll is based on Dyson’s design, which is pretty good at resisting hair wrap. It did well with this, but not perfectly in our tests. Basically, it’s a little better than most rollers at resisting tangles, but we wouldn’t classify it as tangle-resistant.
Battery Life
It has a 2600 milliamp-hour battery, which Belife says can power the vacuum for up-to 40 minutes on low power. We tested it with the main cleaning head attached on its highest (Max) power setting and got a little over 15 minutes of runtime, which is really impressive. Both numbers are well above average.
Tip: Our recommendation would be to use the Belife BVC11 on its medium power setting in most cases. This would probably give you around 20 or 30 minutes of runtime before needing to recharge, which should be sufficient for most jobs.
Filtration
Its filtration is good for the price but not perfect. It is really rare that vacuums in this price range have a HEPA filter at all, let alone a sealed system. While Belife claims to have both, in our test, there was a little visible fog coming from the filter. Not nearly as much as we’re used to seeing with vacuums in this price range, but just a little.
Noise Level
Its noise level was just about average, maybe a little quieter than normal, but not really a pro or a con.
Handle Weight
It’s about average compared to other cordless vacuums, but it is clearly modeled after the post-V10 Dyson cordless models, and it is slightly lighter than those.
In the box
Cons
Now we come to the negative stuff and things which could be improved upon.
High Cleaner Head Design
With the Belife, the main negatives are about its floor head design, which is a little higher than normal with large front gates. While these qualities make it good for hard floors, the trade-off is that it doesn’t have a good seal, which means it’s not as good at teasing dirt and debris out of crevices.
Crevice and Carpet Deep Cleaning
Unsurprisingly, this was evident in our crevice pickup test where it was far below average. It was also confirmed in our unsealed suction test, where it scored below average.
This lack of a tight seal also affected its carpet deep cleaning. For our carpet deep clean test we embed sand into medium pile carpet and weigh the bin before and after a set amount of vacuuming.
In that test the BVC11 was again below average but not terrible. For example, it did better than the Pretty Care cordless vacuums we reviewed awhile back, which are in the same price range.
Attachments and Tools
Another shortcoming was that the attachment set was not as useful as we were hoping. As we mentioned earlier, it has amazing suction power. But, its two included tools, a combo brush / narrow upholstery tool and crevice tool, are not really the best tools to take advantage of all that power. At the time of review Belife didn’t have additional tools for sale on their website either.
Dustbin Trigger
This one’s a bit nitpicky, but there is an additional trigger in front of the power trigger that releases the dustbin door. It’s good, but you really need to get used to it because it has a kind of two-staged release mechanism. A half pull releases the door on the bin, and a full pull releases the bin itself, which we found to be a bit confusing.
Conclusion
All in all, we can see why the Belife BVC11 is selling so well and has generally good reviews online. It’s regularly been a contender for our favorite budget cordless vacuum. But we do think that someone with 50% or more hard floors in their home are the ones who will appreciate it the most.
Belief Cordless Specs: BVC11
| Model | BVC11 |
| Suction Power | 25Kpa |
| Motor | 380W Brushless |
| Battery | 2200mAh 7-cell |
| Max Battery Run Time | 40 Minutes |
| Removable Battery | Yes |
| Headlights | Yes, LED |
| HEPA Filter | Yes |
| Removable Dustinb | Yes |
| Dustbin Capacity | 0.7L / 0.74 qts. |