Clean floors are important. We walk on them all day, and it is very easy for them to become dirty in what seems like no time at all. The issue is compounded when one has small children, with the toys, snacks, and general attraction to being on the floor. As a result, I was recently able to take a look at the Narwal S10 Pro Wet/Dry Vacuum, which produced some surprising results.
First of all, as with most vacuums and wet/dry vacuums of its kind, there is unboxing and assembly. Thankfully, the Narwal S10 Pro is very easy to assemble, as the water tank and handle slide into their corresponding places very easily and give a satisfying ‘click’ sound when they are secured. You also get a replacement scrubbing wheel, cleaning brush, and filter. The charging base doubles as a storage base, so the vacuum has a place to live when not in use instead of taking up space in your closet.
The S10 Pro itself is a lovely glossy white colour and matches the charging base quite nicely. At the top of the handle is a small screen that tells you what cleaning mode you’re using, if the unit has detected more dirt than usual, the battery level, and more. It has two hidden charging contact points on the underside of the waste water tank, so you can easily place the unit on top of the corresponding charging points on the base when it’s ready to charge.
When it comes to using the S10 Pro, one simply needs to fill up the water tank that is housed in the very bottom of the unit, right behind the scrubbing wheel brush. The tank itself holds around 790 mL of clean water to wash the floors with. The S10 Pro itself does not require any additional cleaning solutions to be added to the water tank, and in practice, I found that my floors were getting as clean as they were when I would use my Shark Wet/Dry vacuum I had previously (which DID recommend using additional cleaners in their tank).
When it came to actually using the S10 Pro, it was a treat. The unit is very easy to maneuver around obstacles, such as your kitchen chairs or an errant stuffy your 5-year-old has temporarily abandoned.
“The S10 Pro itself does not require any additional cleaning solutions to be added to the water tank.”
The S10 Pro, perplexingly, is both heavy and lightweight when in use, and I don’t mean because of the almost full litre of water onboard either. The unit comes in at around 9.7 lbs, so nothing too bad, and it feels lightweight when going around stuff, but when I was going slowly in a straight line to cover an area, the S10 Pro has a lot of weight to it. This is due to the self-propelled feeling that the scrubbing wheel gives. I often felt like the unit was trying to pull itself out of my hands, and I had to keep a firm grip to make sure it stayed under control.
The S10 Pro features a Precise Edge to ensure that you can get as close as possible to walls, cabinets, tables and anything else in your home. The Precise Edge is less than half an inch separation from the edge of the barrier and the scrubbing wheel, meaning you can clean closer to the barrier than ever before with a vacuum.
The S10 Pro has five built-in cleaning modes: One-Click Max, Dirt Detect, Whisper Clean, Water Suction, and Stain Buster. They all do pretty much exactly what they sound like, with various levels of efficiency. I found that the One-Click Max was very effective, but only in small spaces, as it used battery power like a hot knife through butter.
“Everything so far is all well and good, but my biggest issue with the Narwal S10 Pro has to be the battery life.”
For the level of use I needed, I was happy to keep it on Auto mode, which cycled through the various cleaning modes if they were needed. Every once in a while I’d hear an announcement from the vacuum saying “Dirt Detected”, but that’s about it, and my floors came clean every single time.
Everything so far is all well and good, but my biggest issue with the Narwal S10 Pro has to be the battery life. Narwal says that the unit can give 50 minutes of battery life and can cover up to 3200 sqft on a single charge, but in my experience, I got around 35 minutes of battery life, and that’s while leaving it on Auto-Mode. There were multiple times I had to start cleaning my apartment and then stop in the middle to charge the unit back up to finish a couple of hours later. It was quite an inconvenience, to say the least, as getting it all done in one go is my goal every time.
On the whole, I have very few complaints about the Narwal S10 Pro. The battery life is the deciding factor on whether or not I would continue to use it, and if I use it for individual room jobs, then it is very good at what it does. It’s when it comes to doing the whole home that the issue shows itself. The other issue is the price. Coming in at $599.99 CAD, it is very expensive for a unit that struggles with battery life.
The vacuum does a great job getting the floors clean and chemical-free is always a plus, so I can definitely recommend the Narwal S10 Pro, despite the issues I mentioned earlier.
