REVIEW – I hate cleaning out my car, mainly because I have to drag our upright home vacuum cleaner out to the garage and wrestle it around the car to vacuum out the inside. It’s a pain, and if you have ever done that yourself, you know what I am talking about. Now, we do have a small hand vac that we use in the house, but the nozzle isn’t quite effective because it’s too big to get into all the nooks and crannies in the car. (Did I just say nooks and crannies??) Enter the $49.99 Outphorce HS1 portable vac. With its multiple attachments and portable size, it looked like the perfect solution to my problem. Let’s find out!
What is it?
The Outphorce HS1 cordless, portable, hand vacuum is a portable car vac with various attachments and carrying drawstring cloth bag
What’s in the box?
- The HS1 vac
- A cloth drawstring bag
- 1 extra hepa filter
- 4 cleaning attachments
- A cleaning brush
- USB-C charging cable
- A user manual
Product specifications
- Size: 2.17 inches thick, 11.81 inches long
- Weight: 1.72 lbs
- 120W, 86,000 rpm brushless motor
- 8,000 mAh lithium-ion built-in rechargeable battery
- Low speed: 9,000pa (30 min runtime)
- High speed: 16,000pa (18 min runtime)
- Debris bin capacity: 5 oz (150ml)
Features and performance
When you hold the Outphorce HS1 vacuum in your hand, you get a good solid feeling. Its round, smooth surface is easy to hold and manipulate and it’s almost right at 12 inches long. The controls are simple, with only one button on it to turn it on, cycle between the two power settings, and then turn off. On the business end, you’ll find the opening of the vac where you can use it without attachments or attach one of the four attachments to suck up debris between car seats, on floorboards, in cup holders, and more, depending on your needs. When you are ready to dump the debris bin, you press the release button just below the opening, and the top of the HS1 opens up via a hinge so you can dump the debris in the trash. Just below that release button, you’ll see some indicators that direct you to twist the body of the vac to detach it from the main body of the vac. In this way, you can get access to the HEPA filter, which can be removed and cleaned if needed. And as mentioned above, the HS1 comes with a second HEPA filter, which is nice.
On the other end of the Outphorce HS1 vacuum, you’ll see where the airflow comes out, and in the middle, you’ll see the USB-C port for charging the vac. Another interesting feature of the HS1 is that you can take the flexible hose attachment and connect it to the blowing end of the vac so that you can actually use the HS1 as a blower! A nice addition, for sure. Here are some pics of the blower attachment:
Finally, a word about performance. The Outphorce HS1 vacuum has two power settings, low and high, with a built-in 8,000 mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery. Vacuum cleaners are rated on their suction power with an indication called ‘pa’. The HS1 on the low setting gives you 9000pa, and the high setting gives you 16000pa. As far as hand vacs like the HS1 go, that’s pretty good. You’ll see competing hand vacs on Amazon that cost a little more than the HS1 with smaller batteries and less ‘pa’ suction power, so I am pleased with how strong the HS1 is.
Outphorce says you should get about 30 min of runtime on the low setting and 18 min on the high setting, but I haven’t been able to get more than 15 min of run time on the high setting. Let’s be real, who wants to use the low setting, right? Let’s get this job done and use the high setting! I would have expected that an 8,000 mAh battery would last longer than that, and the charging time is right at 3.5 hrs, which seems a little long to me. Perhaps I am being overly picky about that, but anyway. Now having said that, 15 min is enough for me to clean one of my cars, so I am actually not complaining too much here. But I don’t have a minivan anymore, with lots of little crumb crunching kids! And I imagine that if I did have a large minivan that I am cleaning out, I would have to dump the debris bin mid-cleaning because just with my average use I get the 150ml (5 oz) bin pretty close to full every time. It would be nice if the debris bin was a little larger.
What I like
- Lots of attachments
- Very easy to hold and use
- Drawstring cloth bag to hold everything
- Strong suction power
What I would change
- A battery that would last longer and charge faster
- A larger debris bin
Final thoughts
The Outphorce HS1 vacuum does a great job of getting my car clean, but I do have to hurry because I can only get about 15 min of use from it. I was surprised that a portable vacuum this large wouldn’t have a larger battery that lasted longer or charged faster. I also wish the debris bin was a little larger. For a really dirty car, you’ll probably be emptying it mid-clean. It is pretty cool to have the blower feature if you ever need it. And the included drawstring cloth carry bag is handy to keep everything together. Despite the two things I mentioned above that I would change, the reality is that there currently isn’t another portable vac of this type that beats this price and included features. You won’t use the HS1 to clean your house, but that isn’t the market for this vac anyway. For this price and features, the HS1 is a good vac to have handy to clean up those crumbs the kids left behind in the minivan!
Price: $49.99 (on Outphorce website)
Where to buy: Outphorce and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Outphorce.
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Just got mine, price went little higher, but it’s definitely worth the price!