Our staff writer Amanda bought the inexpensive Tikom V500 cordless vacuum with her own money when her upright stopped working. She then brought the Dyson V16 Piston Animal home from our studio to see what the premium model added. This comparison combines her experience with our studio results to find out how these two cordless vacuums compare and what you get for the difference in price.
Compare the Cordless Vacuums
Tikom V500
Vacuum Wars Stars 3.59
At just 3.4 lb at the handle, the Tikom V500 punches well above its price class: its anti‑tangle brushroll, roomy 1.3‑liter dustbin, LED headlights, digital battery gauge, and handy crevice‑and‑dusting tools make quick work of daily messes on both hard floors and carpets, while filtration that’s better than most budget rivals keeps fine dust in check—even passing our 14‑inch hair test with minimal tangling. Although raw suction and runtime land below the class average, the V500’s balanced design, solid pickup scores, and feather‑light handling deliver everything you need for under a hundred dollars—earning it Vacuum Wars’ 2025 Best Cordless Vacuum Under $100 award. See additional info
Dyson V16 Piston Animal
Vacuum Wars Stars 3.48
The Dyson V16 Piston Animal is Dyson’s flagship cordless vacuum, pairing strong tested cleaning performance with the dual-cone All Floor Cones head, a dedicated Laser Slim Fluffy head, and a motorized anti-tangle upholstery tool. In Vacuum Wars testing, it earned perfect carpet deep-clean and crevice pickup scores, above-average suction and airflow, up to 70 minutes of runtime, and flawless sealed HEPA filtration. Its large redesigned dustbin compacts debris, while automatic suction adjustment, green laser illumination, a live particle-count display, and a removable battery round out the feature set. Tradeoffs include needing to swap cleaner heads for optimal results and slightly below-average performance in the 14-inch hair-tangle test. See additional info
The home behind this comparison
With three kids and a large German Shepherd mix that sheds plenty of hair, Amanda’s home gave these vacuums a lot to keep up with. It’s about 1,500 square feet across two levels, with mostly laminate, some tile and thin washable rugs upstairs. Downstairs, the family’s media room and creative space have textured concrete and a thicker area rug. There was no shortage of different surfaces, or everyday messes, to try them on.
We wanted to see how each vacuum fit into that daily routine, from a quick cleanup to getting through the whole house. Alongside Amanda’s experience, we’ve included our studio results for a closer look at deep cleaning, battery life, long-hair tangling and filtration.
Everyday pickup: the Tikom covers the basics
For everyday dust and debris, the little Tikom held its own. It did well on Amanda’s hard floors and picked up surface messes from her rugs, too. The Dyson had more power, but for these ordinary cleanups, the difference wasn’t nearly as big as the price gap might suggest. If you need something light and easy to grab for a small mess, this is where the Tikom makes a good case for itself.
Both vacuums also helped Amanda see what she was picking up. The Dyson’s low-angle green light revealed individual hairs and fine dust that were easy to miss under normal lighting. The Tikom’s lights weren’t as powerful, but they were still a useful addition, giving her a clearer view as she cleaned.
Carpet deep cleaning: the Dyson pulls ahead
The thicker rug downstairs was where the Dyson really started to show what that extra power could do. Amanda went over it with the Tikom, and it looked reasonably clean. Then she tried the Dyson. It pulled out enough additional embedded dirt that, as we mention in the video, she was almost embarrassed to show it. That experience lined up with what we saw in our studio.
In our carpet deep-clean test, we embed sand in medium-pile carpet and measure how much each vacuum recovers. The Tikom recovered 89%, while the Dyson recovered 100%. A rug can look clean on top and still have dirt down in the fibers, and this was one of the clearest differences Amanda noticed at home.
Pet hair: pickup is only part of the job
With a heavily shedding dog in the house, pet hair was always going to be a big part of this comparison. The Tikom could pick it up, but getting that hair all the way into the bin was another matter. Even at higher settings, hair often collected at the suction port instead of traveling up the wand. Amanda could get it cleaning again by clearing the clog, but stopping to do that over and over became frustrating. She didn’t run into the same problem with the Dyson.
Long hair wrapping around the brush roll is a separate challenge. Nobody in Amanda’s home has very long hair, so we turned to our studio 14-inch hair-tangle test for that part of the comparison. There’s good news for both models here: the Tikom scored 10 out of 10 and the Dyson scored 9.5 out of 10.
Battery life: can you finish the house?
Having to stop and recharge was another frustration with the Tikom. Even on low power, Amanda couldn’t get through the whole house on one charge, and using higher settings for pet hair cut her cleaning sessions shorter still. Then came a wait of several hours to recharge. With the Dyson, she could finish the entire house and still have charge left over.
Here’s an interesting detail from our studio testing: at maximum power with the floor head attached, the Tikom actually ran a little longer. But a fixed-setting runtime test doesn’t tell you how much cleaning you’ll get done in your own home. For Amanda, the Dyson’s combination of cleaning power and battery coverage meant she could finish the job without a charging break.
| Studio test | Tikom V500 | Dyson V16 Piston Animal |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum-power runtime, floor head attached | 18.0 minutes | 15.3 minutes |
Handling: the Tikom is lighter
The Tikom’s lighter weight was a welcome advantage when Amanda took it off the floor to clean with the attachments. Our measured handle assemblies weighed 3.41 pounds for the Tikom and 4.76 pounds for the Dyson. Those are handle weights, rather than the weight of each complete vacuum. Even so, the Dyson felt nicely balanced, and Amanda found both easy to maneuver without much fatigue.
Attachments: the Dyson handles more jobs
The Tikom came with the basics: a motorized floor head, wand, crevice tool and dusting tool. Its spinning brush roll did a lot of the work on floors, though, and Amanda noticed the drop in cleaning power when she switched to the smaller tools. She needed the highest setting with the crevice and dusting tools, and even then she wished for more suction.
The Dyson package we used gave Amanda more ways to tackle the rest of the house. Along with its conical main floor head, wand and crevice tool, it included a soft roller for hard floors and a motorized upholstery tool. That upholstery attachment was especially handy for fabric furniture, cleaning thoroughly without damaging it during her use. The Tikom didn’t come with an equivalent motorized tool.
Neither vacuum made every attachment change effortless. The Tikom’s connections could be awkward at both ends of the wand, and removing the Dyson’s wand from the body took some practice. Amanda got better at it, but it was a step she had to repeat whenever she emptied the Dyson’s bin. Switching floor heads was much easier: the Dyson’s remote-release mechanism made that a quick, convenient job.
Filtration: keeping the dust in the vacuum
Filtration is one of those things you can’t judge just by looking at a freshly cleaned floor, so we brought in our studio fog test for this comparison. The Tikom showed a weakness here, while the Dyson performed perfectly in that test.
Dustbin emptying and maintenance
Emptying the Dyson was a different story. Amanda found that tipping its bin into an indoor trashcan could kick dust back into the air. She did appreciate the compression feature, though. Being able to push the debris down and make more room in the bin bought her extra cleaning time before she needed to empty it.
The Tikom saved a step by letting her empty the bin with the wand still attached. The catch was that its release button was easy to bump accidentally. Amanda had to be careful while vacuuming and while taking it on and off the wall mount. Both designs had conveniences she liked, along with a few small annoyances she had to work around.
Which one should you choose?
Amanda found things to like about both vacuums. The Tikom’s biggest appeal was how convenient it was for the money: it stayed charged on the wall, was easy to grab for small messes, and was simple enough for the kids to use during chores. For light cleanup, especially on hard floors, it did what she needed. But the pet-hair clogs, weaker deep cleaning and charging breaks kept it from being her only vacuum.
The Dyson felt much more capable of taking on the whole house. Its stronger cleaning power, useful attachments and battery coverage made a real difference in Amanda’s day-to-day use, particularly with pets and rugs to clean. If you’re choosing between these two, it comes down to the job you need done: the Tikom is an inexpensive helper for quick cleanups, while the Dyson is better equipped to handle the bulk of a busy home’s cleaning.
For light cleanup on a budget:
Tikom V500
Vacuum Wars Stars 3.59
At just 3.4 lb at the handle, the Tikom V500 punches well above its price class: its anti‑tangle brushroll, roomy 1.3‑liter dustbin, LED headlights, digital battery gauge, and handy crevice‑and‑dusting tools make quick work of daily messes on both hard floors and carpets, while filtration that’s better than most budget rivals keeps fine dust in check—even passing our 14‑inch hair test with minimal tangling. Although raw suction and runtime land below the class average, the V500’s balanced design, solid pickup scores, and feather‑light handling deliver everything you need for under a hundred dollars—earning it Vacuum Wars’ 2025 Best Cordless Vacuum Under $100 award. See additional info
For deeper, whole-home cleaning:
Dyson V16 Piston Animal
Vacuum Wars Stars 3.48
The Dyson V16 Piston Animal is Dyson’s flagship cordless vacuum, pairing strong tested cleaning performance with the dual-cone All Floor Cones head, a dedicated Laser Slim Fluffy head, and a motorized anti-tangle upholstery tool. In Vacuum Wars testing, it earned perfect carpet deep-clean and crevice pickup scores, above-average suction and airflow, up to 70 minutes of runtime, and flawless sealed HEPA filtration. Its large redesigned dustbin compacts debris, while automatic suction adjustment, green laser illumination, a live particle-count display, and a removable battery round out the feature set. Tradeoffs include needing to swap cleaner heads for optimal results and slightly below-average performance in the 14-inch hair-tangle test. See additional info
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Every list below is drawn from the same test data as this ranking.
By need
CarpetsRanked by our carpet deep clean pickup test.
Hard FloorsRanked by hard floor and crevice pickup.
Pet HairRanked by pet hair pickup and hair tangle resistance.
Dyson ModelsEvery Dyson cordless we have tested, ranked.
Shark ModelsEvery Shark cordless we have tested, ranked.
LightweightThe lightest cordless vacuums we have tested, ranked.
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