Acerpure Clean V1 Lite review: A cornerstone product

Acerpure’s first vacuum to hit the Australian market is a weird pitch. The Clean V1 Lite is a handheld vacuum, with two heads specifically designed to get into corners. That's it, that's the product. In a market densely packed with stick vacuum options, the Clean V1 Lite’s unique proposition definitely stands out but is it enough to corner the competition?

Living up to its name the Clean Lite is a miniature device in every sense. Weighing just 550g, even if its 150ml bin was entirely full it would still sit well under 1kg. It is, by far the lightest stick vac we have come across including Dyson’s kid’s toy the Casdon- though the suction is probably a bit better on the Acerpure. 

It comes with a metal tube which extends the device out to be more like a stick vacuum, or the attachments can clip directly onto the body. With these two options it seems to straddle the line between handheld and stick in the same way most other competitors in the space do. One device to suit many purposes. Although the Clean Lite isn’t really a multi-purpose device, it is ultimately a corner and crevice tool. 

The two included attachments are a typical crevice tool you see with most vacuums, and one entirely unique corner tool. Crafted as a right angle with grippy plastic on the bottom to help agitate debris, the tool is made to, well, clean the corners of your home. Which it does to varying degrees of success, but more on that in the performance section. While the vacuum does come with a storage stand, that stand doesn’t have enough space for all of its components. It only holds the vacuum body and the crevice tool so you’ll need to find your own storage solution for the corner tool and the metal neck.

Performance suffers at the expense of the Clean Lite’s streamline design. Its battery life is short, its charge time is long, and the actual cleaning efficiency is a mixed bag. 

Let's get one thing straight, this device is not made for large debris. From the size of the canister, to the attachments, it is clearly for those little fiddly parts that are hard to get to. Testing absolutely confirmed this; larger pieces of paper would get stuck in both the corner and crevice tool, and many times wouldn’t make it all the way up the shaft and into the canister. Clean Lite simply doesn’t have enough suction power, nor a wide enough neck to allow for this. Despite stress testing the mini vacuum on larger particles there were no major blockages to be found, and unclipping the canister and tipping out the contents was as simple as that. 

When it comes to medium and fine particles the performance improves but not equally across all uses. During testing we used rolled oats as our standard for medium debris, and salt for fine. Undeniably the Clean Lite performed the best on fine debris across both carpet, and linoleum floors. Both attachments picked up the salt in one to two passes regardless of the floor surface type. Medium debris came up easily with the crevice tool, but this is where the corner tool began to struggle. On carpet it took upwards of six passes for the corner tool to pick up medium particles, and while it did perform better on hard surfaces it still took significantly longer than the smaller debris. 

This is a two-fold issue; the suction is weak and neither of the heads have rollers. While rollers can be a nuisance to clean, they work to sweep up debris and whip it into the vacuum. Without this extra agitation on the floor surface you’re reliant on the suction to do the hard work, which in this case the Lite simply isn’t capable of. More powerful suction would undoubtedly help but it would sacrifice the already limited battery life.

Out of the box Acerpure claims the Clean Lite will last for 15 minutes- comparatively most other stick vacuums are rated to last an hour. Despite the underwhelming claim it slightly overperforms, lasting 16 minutes and 43 seconds during testing. Regardless, it probably isn’t enough time for most people. If you’re at the point where you’re delving into those corners then chances are you’re doing a real deep clean, and 15 minutes likely won’t cut it for the results you’re craving. If charging were faster then it would be easier to excuse it but as it stands the Clean Lite takes four hours to charge back up in order to erk out another 15 minutes. It does charge via USB-C though, so theoretically you could reverse charge it from your iPhone 15 while you’re cleaning. If you’re into that sort of thing (I am).

Acerpure Clean V1 Lite retails for $199 in Australia, and is available from just Acer and Bing Lee.