Sadly that is not the case when it gets to your carpet edges. A cursory look at the underside of the 008 reveals that the brush bar and man air-flow channel are inset a long way from the edge of the floorhead. The result is very poor edge cleaning with residual test powder showing over 1cm out from the skirting board edge. This cleaner has powerful suction, cleans pretty close to the skirting in upright mode and conveniently carries a handheld along with you to get to the fiddly bits. Interestingly, the Supervac is one of the few cleaners we have ever tested that the powered brush bar cannot be turned off and runs constantly. We are not great fans of this idea as when it comes to hard floors, particularly easily damaged surfaces such as softwood parquet, there is a danger of damage if small bits of stone or gravel get caught up in the brushes.

On the first trial switch on we could see the brush bar spinning and hear something – but not a lot. The 008 is spectacularly quiet and you could probably clean up around a sleeping baby without waking them. At just 72dB that is much, much lower than most mains powered vacuum cleaners and quieter than the majority of cordless ones we have tested too. That sort of noise level is about same as your TV watching daytime programme, so really not intrusive at all. I am using the cleaner in a two bedroomed house, largely carpeted and it does the whole house easily on one charge. It does an equally good job on laminate/lino floors as it does on the carpet. Although this is not going to replace your "big" hoover this vac is great. I have 3 grandchildren who are with me quite a lot and we have the inevitable crumbs etc. They thoroughly enjoy hoovering these up, timing each other so that the sharing is fair. my floors have never been so clean! The only downsides I have discovered is that the tools for the handheld are stored not on the upright but on the charge stand, which is a tad inconvenient as you have to plan ahead and take them with you. The dust reservoir is not that big and must be emptied every time and, as I have long hair, needs a bit of assistance to empty rather than just falling out. If I were to redesign this cleaner I would store the tools on the upright and change the emptying feature so that it does not require the use of fingers to empty.