This week my little girl has been helping me with the vacuuming with her very own Dyson. Lucky her, I am yet to get one of my own! Believe it or not she now has two, her cousins passed down a cylinder toy Dyson (which is fantastic) and then Geoffery kindly sent us this upright version to review.
It is very realistic looking and well made, I don't think it would break any time soon. It also makes a great Dyson sound so they feel like they really have their own mini version and are really helping with the housework! You can set it to suction mode or have the little balls swirl around inside which is great fun for little ones!
Having its own real life suction is such a great idea for play that we couldn't help be a little bit disappointed when we put it to the test. I can't help but compare it to the other Dyson toy she has which has similar features and is really fantastic. It could be just our model but this one doesn't really seem to have any suction. I know as it is for little ones it can't really be very strong but this is much weaker than I expected. My daughter tried for ages to suck up a bit of paper in the end became frustrated and gave up. On the Dyson she already had she absolutely loves sucking up the bits and then removing them from the compartment herself... and then, of course, starting all over again.
The compartment on the back of this vacuum is really tricky to remove and she can't do it by herself which is such a shame as this is her favourite part of the game! Maybe as she gets older she'll get the hang of it but I even found it fiddly.
She has also found just turning it on a little confusing to start off with. There is a big red button on the front which is perfect but then you still have to use the more adult style switch on the back to select suction or pretend mode. This doesn't make sense to me, toys should be designed so that little ones can play with them all by themselves if they want to. The overall result is that she hasn't played with it as much as I expected.
I think it could be simplified and aimed at younger children as from my experience it is aged around 1 to 2 years that my little girl wanted to roll play such games and do everything mummy did!
Having said that she says she loves it and when I have been vacuuming she's been having a go too - and there's no denying it looks fantastic and just like a real life Dyson!