Hoover H-Free 500 review: the perfect cordless vacuum for flats and small homes

OUR Hoover H-Free 500 review spans 2020 to 2023.

Check out how the compact vacuum cleaner holds up after a bit of rigorous testing below.

Hoover H-Free 500: Pros

• Compact
• Lightweight
• Good battery life
• Easy to store
• Great value

Hoover H-Free 500: Cons

• Hoover H-Free 500, £166.22 from Amazon -

Like a lot of cordless stick vacuums, the H-Free 500’s carpet roller is a magnet for tightly wound hair.

While the Shark IZ201UK has anti-hair wrap technology for this, you’ll have to break out the scissors every couple of weeks with the Hoover to cut free the hair on the roller.

As we’ve mentioned, the Hoover won’t provide the same suction power as one of the more recent Dyson models.

While the power isn’t a deal-breaker for us, if you’ve got a lot of carpets that need deep cleaning in your house, you might want to opt for a .

As you might expect with such a compact vacuum cleaner, the cylinder is a bit smaller on the Hoover than the Dyson V8 Animal and the Shark IZ201UK, which means you’ll need to empty it more often.

Hoover H-Free 500: out the box

First impressions of the Hoover H-Free 500 are good. There’s nothing complicated about putting its parts together; all the buttons are clearly labelled, so it’s easy to piece it together and get it up and running asap.

Plus, as a handy extra, you get a neat little tote bag which fits all the attachments that come with the vacuum, so it’s easy to tuck them away in a cupboard or hang them off a hook for storage.

The compact size of the H-Free 500 is a bonus, too: you’re not going to have to clear much out of the way to make room for it. The vacuum head detaches from the stick easily and can be reattached further down to save on storage space.

Hoover H-free 500: performance

Once we’d put it together, we started putting the H-Free 500 to work.

Over a couple of weeks, it became the vacuum cleaner of choice in our flat, working over carpet, tiles and floorboards.

It’s got a special boost mode for carpets which starts the dust roller at the end of the head whirring round, and we found it worked well. 

While the H-Free 500 doesn’t have the raw power of the more recent Dyson stick vacuums, which seem determined to pull your carpets from the floor, we still found it had enough power to get the job done well.

It’s got similar battery life to most stick vacuums on the market (40 minutes on low power mode), so it was plenty to get around a flat, although if you’re using max power in a big house, you might want to invest in a model with a spare battery to ensure you get all your cleaning done in one go.

On hard floors and tiles, the lower power mode was plenty to pick up dust and dirt, but the H-Free 500 does have a rather low ground clearance which means you can end up pushing larger debris around the floor.

The biggest mark in the Hoover’s favour, though, is its weight. It’s the lightest cordless stick vacuum we’ve tested at 2.2kg (0.3kg lighter than a Dyson V8 Animal), and it makes a real difference to how quickly you can get around.

It’s easy to detach the vacuum from the stick and use it as a handheld to clean up smaller spills and get into awkward areas too.

Coupled with the fact that it doesn’t require your finger to be pressed onto the trigger like a Dyson, we think this is now the best option we’ve tested if you’re looking for a vacuum that can double as a handheld cleaner for your car or upholstery.

• Hoover H-Free 500, 166.22 from Amazon -