Paladone Desktop Henry Vacuum Cleaner

I am constantly complaining about the amount of dreaded little dog hairs that keep finding their way into my laptop keyboard so I was very pleased to receive the Desktop Henry Vacuum Cleaner as a gift.

What is a 'Henry'?

Henry is a vacuum cleaner by British cleaning and maintenance equipment company Numatic. The first Henry hit the shelves in 1980 and has been a great success ever since with over 7 million being produced worldwide. Henry's have been known to be reliable and effective hoovers that are often used in workplaces, as well as homes. I have had my Henry for a good few years and he's still going strong!

Henry hoovers are red and black coloured and are best known for their smiley faces which are printed on the front of them. Henry now also has a pink girlfriend called Hetty!

Look & Size

The Desktop Henry looks just like a full sized Henry, but just scaled down.

It is half red, half black and has 2 eyes, a mouth and a black plastic hosepipe nose - a real cutie! It also has 4 wheels to wheel it along (the back 2 are slightly bigger for better stability). The name 'Henry' is written on the top (front) of the hoover, along with a tiny little handle and a button to turn the hoover on and off. Unlike a full sized Henry it doesn't have a plug and instead runs off batteries.

The hoover comes with 2 accessories which attach on to the end of the pipe - a flat floor tool and a pointed crevice tool.

It is around 4 inches tall and around 3 inches in diameter. It is lightweight - the heaviest part of the hoover is the black lid, which also doubles up as a battery compartment. The Henry requires 3 x AA batteries which annoyingly aren't included.

It's designed to be used in the home or office - basically anywhere that has a desk or computer! To open up Henry you need to give the black lid a twist and pull, which is an easy task. The Henry is empty inside and doesn't require any hoover bags etc. There is actually quite a lot of space inside the Henry considering how small it is.

When the Henry is switched on it makes a buzzing sound which isn't terribly noisy but is a lot louder than I ever expected.

So, is it any good?

My Henry looks darn cute, but how does he clean up? Well, not great to be honest. I was hoping he would be able to suck up the pet hairs and general rubbish from in and around my keyboard but he rarely sucks up a thing. He works slightly better when using on my desk (and other flat surfaces), but still doesn't suck up anything much than the odd crumb here and there! The tools don't make any difference to the suction, infact they tend to make it slightly worse. When I turn the hoover on and put my finger over the end of the pipe I cannot feel any suction, which says it all really...

After realising little Henry wasn't up to the job I decided he would be better off living his life in my daughters toy box. I made the right decision because she has had lots more fun with him than I did! I always catch her hoovering little bits up around the house.

Price & Availability

The Desktop Henry Hoover is widely available from places such as Amazon.co.uk, Play.com, Firebox.com, Hawkin's Bazaar and Argos. I've also seen them in Tesco. They generally retail between £6.00 - £11.00.

Final thoughts

If you want something that will sit on your desk and look incredibly cute, then I recommend the Desktop Henry to you. However if you are looking for something to give your desk a good clean up, then Henry is not your hoover!