Ultenic U12 Vesla cordless vacuum review: Dyson oomph for a quarter of the price

I’m always looking for ways to spend less time doing housework and more time relaxing. No matter how much cleaning I do, there always seems to be more. So excuse my glee when I found the Ultenic U12 Vesla cordless vacuum cleaner. At only $149 at Ultenic (and often reduced from $199 to $149 at Amazon) it’s a super-budget entry onto the oversaturated Dyson dupe market, but can it compete with the best vacuum cleaners around?

With unprecedented (for Ultenic) GreenEye technology, two HEPA filters, and lightweight enough to lug up a steep staircase, this is an affordable vacuum cleaner you’ll want to keep on your radar. I was obsessed with how it got into all the little crevices of my house, and how it cleaned both my hard floors and my carpeted bedroom. The only downside is the long charging time and short battery life, but if you’ve got a small house like me, this won’t be a problem. 

If you want to save yourself hundreds of dollars by skipping out on Dyson and putting your trust into a budget brand, you’ve come to the right place. Let me walk you through this super-affordable cordless vacuum cleaner in this Ultenic U12 Vesla review. 

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A super affordable cordless vacuum cleaner
• Who is it for? Those with small living spaces looking to spend a little less than a Dyson or a Shark
• What does it do well? It’s mind-blowingly portable and can get into all those little crevices
• What are its weaknesses? The battery life is a little poor — only 15 minutes on high setting

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Specs

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Price & availability

The Ultenic U12 Vesla is a budget cordless vacuum cleaner, available at Amazon for $179 / £199. Amazon often has coupons; the lowest we’ve seen is $129. On the Ultenic website, the U12 Vesla is $149. 

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Design & setup

Straight out of the box, I was disappointed with the amount of plastic packaging. Ultenic has used PE-LD 04 plastic bags, which is at least recyclable. The rest of the packaging is cardboard, which is more environmentally friendly, and which I’d liked to have seen more of. In fairness, this is not unusual for other vacuum cleaner companies, like Proscenic.

My first thought was about how lightweight the component brushes were. I thought this would make them cheap and therefore ineffective. How wrong I was! After a few minutes playing around with the machine, clicking the components into place and switching them out, I realized that this is a lightweight vacuum for a reason: portability. 

Despite its budget price tag, this is a well-made and stylish-looking device. It looks almost exactly like a Dyson V12 Detect Slim (am I the only one noticing the similarity in names there?) and I’m not mad about it. The Ultenic has all the sleek style of its luxury branded competitors, but it won’t set you back $500. I call that a win.

One happy surprise with the U12 Vesla is its ‘GreenEye’ technology. This is a bright green lightsaber-y light with a 13.7 inch³ range which illuminates any missed dirt on your floors. I found myself transfixed by the glowing green light, going over the same patch of carpet multiple times to get that pesky last crumb.

If one part of your Ultenic U12 Vesla happens to break, you can purchase replacement parts on the Ultenic website. So, hypothetically, if you misplace the crevice component, you don’t have to buy a whole new vacuum to replace it. You can also buy an extra battery for around $47 if you’ve a big house. And Ultenic offers a 1 year warranty, so if something breaks before those 365 days are up, they should replace it for you.

While setting up the vacuum was mostly stress-free, I was a little put off by the charging time. This vacuum needs to charge for 5-6 hours before its battery is full. It also doesn’t tell you how long until it’s fully charged. This is notably longer than the Dyson V12’s 3.5 hours charging time, but almost equals the Dyson V11’s 4.5 hours charging time. Cordless vacuums are designed to be left plugged in, though, and the Ultenic U12 comes with a handy wall mount for charging.

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Cleaning capabilities

Upon turning on the vacuum, the first thing I noticed was the speedometer-looking light-up screen. It displays five cleaning power modes: 30/60/90/120/150. I noticed that when you go up to 120 and click up again, the U12 Vesla skips past 150 and goes straight back down to 30 again. Perplexed, I consulted my user manual, which informed me that 150 is ‘AUTO’ mode. The vacuum will automatically select this setting if it detects a major spillage or blockage, presumably most used on thick pile carpet. 

So there wasn’t anything left for me to do but start cleaning. I was delighted to see a countdown on the speedometer screen, helpfully telling me how much real-time battery I had left. On 30 (ECO mode), I had around 45 minutes on a full charge. This went down incrementally until 120, which told me I had only 15 minutes. Now, I don’t live in a big house, so 15 minutes to clean the whole place is feasible to me. But for a large family home with multiple pets? I’m not so sure. 

I embarked on a three-pronged cleaning quest: one, cereal; two, sugar; three, hair. 

For the first test, I tossed a handful of cereal onto my vinyl wooden floors. I pumped up the U12 to ‘120’ and put the thing to work. To my appreciation, the vacuum sucked up all the pieces and left the floor spotless. The second test I was a little nervous for. I didn’t fancy getting on my hands and knees and cleaning sticky sugar, so I really wanted the U12 to work. And thankfully, it only took two passes to eradicate any trace of sugar off my floor. Phew! Finally, I tried hair. I wanted to push the U12 to its limits, so I decided to test it on the thick pile carpet in my bedroom. After ransacking my hairbrush, I spread out the hair over my carpet and put the U12 through its paces. On max setting, the U12 sucked up all my hair and, when I inspected the floor brush afterwards, I saw only one hair in the roller. 

After concluding these fundamental tests, I realized that my baseboards were desperate for a clean, so I switched to handheld mode and added the ‘2-in-1 brush’ attachment and got to work. While my skirting boards now look better than ever, I noticed that the brush’s bristles are a little flimsy — this means it can get into tight crevices, but it makes me wonder if the bristles will hold up over time.

Swapping out the components is easy with a handy button on the stick. You simply press the button, remove the component, and click the new one into place. All in all, I was really impressed with the U12 Vesla’s cleaning capabilities. 

Where the U12 falls short is its dust basket. It’s only 30 ounces, which makes it noticeably smaller than the Proscenic P13 ($169), at 40.5 ounces. Although I didn’t have to empty the dust basket until I’d vacuumed three times, my house is really small, and I can see users with larger homes needing to empty this at least every other use. 

I used the Decibel X app to monitor the volume of the Ultenic U12. On the lowest setting ‘30’, the app read 60dB and on the max setting ‘120’, it read 74dB. It’s about average, but I would still avoid using it in the early morning. 

On setting ‘60’, the medium setting, the Ultenic U12 Vesla took 26 minutes to run out of battery, but about 5 of those minutes it was flashing ‘00:00’, alerting me that it needed charging. While 26 minutes is more than enough to clean my whole house, if yours is on the bigger side, it might be a bit of a push. Eureka RapidClean Pro ($128) clocks in at 40 minutes on Eco mode, which is about the same as the U12. At the other end of the scale, the Dyson V15 Torque Drive ($528) runs for an hour, but costs you over triple the U12.

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: Storage & maintenance

The Ultenic U12 Vesla comes with a wall mount for stress-free charging. The vacuum cannot stand up by itself, so I would recommend installing this wall mount if you can. As I live in a rental, I couldn’t install the wall mount, so unfortunately cannot report on its ease of use. 

Ultenic provides you with two HEPA filters straight out of the box. This is a great, user-friendly addition for big messes. If your first filter needs to be cleaned and you can’t wait for it to dry, simply switch it out for the extra filter and get back to cleaning. 

Ultenic U12 Vesla review: How does it compare?

Ultenic mostly makes robot vacuums and cordless vacuums, all hovering around the $130-200 price point. The Ultenic U11 Pro ($119) has 25,000Pa suction power, whereas the Ultenic U12 Vesla has 40,000. While the U11’s battery life is about 5 minutes longer than the U12, the U12 boasts more sucking power. 

This is the first Ultenic vacuum with GreenEye technology. Whilst this is more often seen amongst more luxurious models like the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute ($749) and the Miele Triflex HX2 Pro ($1099), other budget brands like the Proscenic P13 have recently adopted this too. Now I’ve used a vacuum with this hypnotizing green eye, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back. 

As it’s a cordless stick vacuum, it doesn’t have the ultimate suction power of a corded behemoth like the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 ($167). Likewise, if you have super shedders as pets, you might want to consider something with more suckability, like Shark Rotator Pet ($379), or for a slightly cheaper option, you could check out the Kenmore Floor Care Elite ($299). But, if your house is mostly hard floors or thin carpet, the Ultenic U12 Vesla is an ideal lightweight, cheap vacuum for casual day-to-day cleaning. 

Ultenic U12 review: Verdict

This vacuum cleaner is perfect for someone like me. I always want to find the best cheap products, I live in a small house, I don’t have any children spilling porridge all over the carpet, and I don’t have any pets. But I do live in a rental, so I need to be super on top of carpet maintenance, lest my security deposit be retained upon my eventual disembarkment of the property. 

So if you live in a smaller home, with no pets or children to clean up after, this is an ideal budget stick vacuum. I was thoroughly impressed with the U12’s GreenEye technology, 180° movement to get under furniture, and the $149 ($179 if you shop on Amazon) price tag. 

While it doesn’t have the über suction power of, say, a Dyson V15, it’s most of the way there. And for only $149? I’m sold.