Kip’s Top 10 of Awesome in 2013 – No. 5 – Dyson DC59 Animal Review

Product – Dyson DC59 Animal
Price – £350

When I visited Dyson the other week, they kindly gave the Bloggers in attendance a Dyson DC59 Animal to take home and try. I’ve had it for a few weeks and tested it under a few different scenarios to really get a feel for it. Can a battery powered baby REALLY kick the ass of a mains powered beast? On paper, it’s got the same suction power as a Standard Dyson, but does it match it in the real world?


I’ve owned a Dyson for years, my parents had one of the earliest models and since having my own home, I’ve been always owned a Dyson. They are fabulous, well made machines, my DC22 recently developed a fault, it’s 3 years old now and had a LOT of use, it has a five year guarantee. After a quick call to the Dyson Tech Support team they decided I needed an engineer out, a few days later a lovely chap from Dyson was in my living room fixing it! No messing around, just excellent customer service.

Unboxing the Dyson DC59 Animal is pretty simple, everything is right there infront of you, in the box you get the DC59 Animal itself, a solid extension pipe, a brush attachment, a crevice attachment, a powered turbine head, and a powered small turbine head. Pretty much everything you’d need for around the home. As well as this, there is a mains charger, and a ‘docking’ station. You can wall mount the docking station, and it holds the brush and crevice attachments, or you can just plug the mains charger into the top of the hoover, although I’ve found the dock very convenient.

The Dyson DC59 Animal is cordless, it’s powered by some top of the line batteries that provide one and a half times the power of the older cordless Dyson machines. The battery will last you 20 minutes in standard mode, and 6 minutes when in Turbo mode. I felt a little ‘meh’ about just 20 Minutes when I was told about it, it sounded a bit rubbish, i’ll come back to that in a minute. The ‘bin’ on the unit seems pretty tiny too compared to my cylinder, I had visions of emptying it every five minutes.

The reality is though, quite different.

The idea behind the DC59 is simple, Dyson think it will change the way you clean your house, and I believe them. We use to run around with ours every couple of days, especially now we have J, it was a bit of a pain, dragging it out, plugging it in, setting it all up, and then doing it – stopping halfway because the cable wasn’t QUITE long enough. Then every once in a while, drag it upstairs and do that too. With the DC59 though, it’s a different affair, you just undock it, and go. You can have a quick whizz around and you’re done, I’ve actually found myself having a quick run around with it a couple of times a day. So I’ve found no issues with the battery, or the size of the bin, 20 minutes is PLENTY. It also helps the power is trigger controlled, so it’s only on when you want it to be.

The Turbo Mode is insane, you switch it on by pressing the ‘Turbo’ button on the back of the unit whilst it’s running, the motor will pause, and then kick in Turbo mode. You can really feel the power of the electronic motor kick into life, it’s designed to work on really tough ground in dirt, and it’s fabulous, especially at this time of year, where filthy buggy wheels and boots play havoc with our cream carpets. The Dyson DC59 Animal makes light work of it all, I’ve done a before and after of my hallway after a buggy / welly ‘attack’.

Some of the magic with the cleaning power is in the turbine head itself, as well as having the standard bristles, it has carbon fibre bristles to alter the static charge and help pull the dirt out of the carpet. It’s definitely an improvement over the standard turbine I have on the DC22.

I’ve used the Dyson DC59 Animal all over the house, the stairs are a breeze with the mini turbine head. I also gave the car a clean for the fist time in AGES, it was a breeze! The mini turbine charged acrossed the seats, and the crevice tool was great for getting right into the tight spots – I can’t remember the last time the car looked so good! The amount of dusty in the bin was INCREDIBLE! *shame face*

As with nearly all Dyson machines, there is a filter, it simply pops out and you can wash it under a tap, once a month. The machine has a two year warranty, I did ask the Dyson Rep about the battery, and the life expectancy is over this. The battery is designed to be replaced as well, it comes out by removing one screw. Smart! The bin on the unit is easy to empty, just a click of the button and the bottom swings open, you could say it’s child’s play, so much so, J managed to do it.. ALL OVER THE CARPET!

I really can’t fault the performance of the Dyson DC59 Animal, it’s has left our old DC22 looking a bit of a dinosaur. I think my only gripe is the fact no wall fixings are provided for the docking station, it would cost Dyson a matter of pence to chuck these in the box (providing different types for different wall types). If you’re spending around £350 on a hoover, it seems a bit mean to scrimp on those. To be honest though, that is me REALLY picking, the unit itself, is pretty faultless!