We bought our handheld hoover years ago and tbh it was never particularly good. It was cheap, not very powerful but I remember being very excited about how it supposedly could clean up "wet spills". I'm not sure now why I thought this was such a good selling point but in all the time we have had it, I have never once been tempted to try and hoover up anything other that crumbs. We decided a couple of days ago after M had scattered her cake all over the couch and the handheld we had was having no effect on it whatsoever that it was time for a new one.

The one I probably should go for is the Dirt Devil which has 13.2 V of sucking power compared to my present hoover's rather pathetic 4.8 and fairly good reviews for great suction power, comes with attachments blah blah blah but unfortunately it looks just too much like a power tool. We only expect to use this thing occasionally and I'm not prepared to give it much space.

I saw the Vax cone at The ideal home show. I'm not sure I like it really but it's obviously designed to be inconspicuous, so hopefully whether I like it or not I won't notice it in a couple of weeks. It has less suction power than the Dirt Devil, only 7.2V but it's half the price and discrete lol. It gets relatively good reviews. Not rave, you have to empty it quite a bit but that's easy to do. Will review as soon as my conclusions have been drawn. :)