We really liked the Dyson DC59 Animal when we tested it earlier this year. The hand-held, cordless vacuum is strong enough to replace an upright model, and its floor cleaning head can cover wide swaths of carpet and hardwood floors. Now Dyson offers a slight bump-up model in the DC59 Motorhead. It's almost identical to the DC59 Animal, but even more powerful floor-cleaning and pet hair/upholstery heads let you attack dust with an Iron Fist. (And now you know that Motörhead has more than that one song in their ongoing, nearly 40-year career. You're welcome.)

The new heads are so much more effective, and the higher $549.99 price tag is such a scant bump up from the DC59 Animal's $499.99 price, that the DC59 Motorhead earns our Editors' Choice for cordless, non-robotic vacuums. If you want a robot vacuum, however, the Editors' Choice Neato XV Signature Pro is just $450 and should definitely be on your radar if you don't mind the drop in power. Of course, for non-robotic vacuums, $550 is a sky-high price buoyed mostly by the cachet of the Dyson brand.

Design

Like its predecessor, the DC59 Motorhead is built around a main handheld vacuum component, and comes with a generous assortment of accessories, including a floor cleaning head, an extender wand, a mini tool for upholstery and pet hair, a crevice tool, a charger, and a docking station (which is effectively a plastic bracket you thread the charger into, and can mount on a wall to hold the vacuum with wand securely). The vacuum component looks a lot like a laser gun. It's angular, with a gray plastic pistol grip below the motor and above the battery.

Both DC59 vacuums work with a pull of the pistol grip trigger, and you can boost the suction power by pressing the MAX button on the butt of the vacuum (though battery life will take a hit). Dyson's two-tiered, 15-chamber radial cyclone system and the clear cylindrical dust compartment sit in front of the grip. The cyclone system is a chromed, reflective plastic that's contoured around each chamber, with a removable, washable filter directly in the middle. The DC59 Motorhead uses the same Dyson 350-watt V6 digital motor, which can spin up to 110,000 times a minute, and Dyson's two-tier, 15-cyclone suction system. These parts proved to produce a very powerful suction for a handheld cordless vacuum in the DC59 Animal, and the DC59 Motorhead is no different.