Tineco Pure ONE S11 Review

The Tineco Pure ONE S11 comes with four attachments, one of them being a pre-filter cleaning tool, which we found super useful. It's designed to clean the filter when it gets clogged. Over the years and with the hundreds of tests we have conducted, we've noticed filters can be sensitive after extended use. We appreciate that it comes with this useful attachment to help prevent filter clogs, providing a more sustainable outlook to this vacuum.

Performance Comparison

Carpet Performance

The main strength of this vacuum is how well it performs on carpet. It handled our tough multi-debris stress tests nearly as well as vacuums that cost twice as much.

To test each vacuum, we weigh and then spread 1/2 cup of sand, 1/2 cup of rice, and a 1/2 cup of Cheerios over 9' x 3' test sections of carpet, then try to vacuum up as much as possible in just 24 seconds. It's a tough test, revealing different strengths for each vacuum.

Low Pile

Our lead tester noted that this vacuum has very intense suction that really latched onto the carpet and took some muscle to push. “I think the Pure ONE would be particularly good for people with low pile carpet in their homes and a lot of traffic because it feels as if you could get a deep, consistent clean,” she said.

Because this vacuum was able to consistently clean so well on low pile carpet, we didn't need a third trial to identify nuances. Two trials illustrated what we needed to see: The S11 is a low pile carpet-cleaning beast!

High Pile

On high pile carpet, we noticed a tendency to push the lightweight Cheerios around, which is fairly common because the cereal sometimes floats on top of the shaggy carpet fibers, sticking up above the debris openings to the cleaner head.

Still, our testers were delighted by how well this reasonably-priced vacuum sucked up the heavier sand and rice, leading to a test-leading percentage of 57.28% pickup. Very impressive.

Hardwood Performance

Performance on hardwood was a different story. Again, we used a combo of sand, rice, and Cheerios to test its abilities on a hardwood surface.

While this model did a passable job, its performance was annoying because it tended to both snowplow and backplow Cheerios. Then, on dense sections with a lot of piled rice, it often mowed over the top layer, leaving a bottom layer of rice rather than getting it all in one pass.

Cleaning Performance

In each hardwood test trial, this Pure ONE seemed to do better at the beginning than at the end of each time trial. “This little vacuum would do a pretty good job for the first two-thirds of our test area but then seem to get overwhelmed and slow down sucking up the heavier sand,” one tester noted.

To get good, consistent results on hardwood, users will likely need to go slowly. In addition, remember that brush roll photo above in the carpet section that shows stiff bristles with large gaps in between? In our experience in our lab, traditional carpet-focused stiff brushrolls tend to do poorly on hardwood, while very soft brushrolls do better on hardwood.

Some, like Shark with its Stratos Cordless, include a cleaner head with two separate brushrolls or use a combo cleaner head that has fluffy material as well as stiffer fins, as it does in its Detect Pro. Dyson takes a different approach by often including two separate cleaner heads with its more expensive vacuums, one with a fluffy brush roll for hard floors and another with an agitating brush roll for carpet. With so much suction power in the S11, we believe Tineco could become a serious contender in the cordless stick vacuum space if the company can produce a more hard-floor versatile cleaner head.

Crevice

For our crevice test, we drop sand in between slats of a bamboo mat, then try to suck up as much sand as possible in 4 passes. The vacuums with more suction power tend to excel in this test.

This model managed to suck up 83% of the sand, which was well above average — and another win for its relatively strong suction characteristics.

Edges

Additionally, we tested how well this vacuum performs when cleaning close to walls. We spread coffee grounds against baseboards and attempted to clean both head-on and parallel with the wall to see how much it could pick up. It performed well when pushing the device head-on to the wall, nearly gathering all the coffee. However, vacuuming parallel was much less effective, leaving plenty of grounds behind.

Pet Hair

For those who have a lot of pet hair in their home, the rigor of our pet hair test might make them smile. To set up for this test, we spread 4 grams of mixed pet hair over both test carpet types, then added 1 gram of hair extensions to simulate long human hair. Then we mashed it all down to make it stick to the carpet. By the time we were ready to test, our 13-square-foot carpet sections looked like a pack of wild dogs who took turns rolling around on it, followed by a marching band whose sole job was to stomp the hair into the carpet. It's a tough test.

Based on the strong performance on carpet, we were expecting higher effectiveness in our pet hair test. “This vacuum left a thin layer of hair across the carpet area on low pile carpet and struggled to pick up the deeply embedded hair,” explained our lead tester. “On high pile, the pet hair tended to clump and got stuck in the tines on the brush roll.”

Still, to put this in perspective, this vacuum performed slightly above average with pet hair compared to all the vacuums we tested. In fact, every other vacuum that scored better in test hair performance than the Pure ONE also cost at least $100 more. The very best cordless vacuum we tested for pet hair was the Dyson Gen5detect, which costs a whopping $600 more.

Filtration & Suction

We test both filtration and suction to determine possible flaws that could affect buying decisions. For example, our tests reveal that some high-suction vacuums skimp on filtration. We show these two test results together to help people decide if the filtration/suction characteristics are right for them.

As you can see by this chart, the Tineco Pure ONE S11 ranks well above average in both of these metrics.

Filtration

To test filtration, we suck up flour inside a controlled clean room while using two Dylos air quality monitors to record and detect any spikes in ambient air quality. Because very fine particles can become more deeply embedded in your lungs and possibly affect health, we measure small particles as well as indoor dust.

Tineco says its iLoop Dust Sensor detects hidden dust, pollen, and dander and automatically adjusts suction power in real-time to ensure it flows to its 4-stage HEPA filtration system. In our test, this model did its job, only allowing a very small spike in particulates to enter the air, earning it an excellent filtration rating. For those who have people in their home who are sensitive to allergens or pet dander, this vac's filtration capabilities are unlikely to make allergies worse.

Suction

The Tineco Pure ONE S11 exhibits strong suction performance in our test, generating a powerful 1,294 pascals at the cleaner head in our laboratory test. This is very good and particularly impressive for a budget-priced model.

However, we wished it would've performed a little better in our hardwood test. Our thorough performance testing shows that suction power isn't everything and that head and roller designs can make a big difference depending on floor type.

Ease of Use

With the handheld weighing in at 3.7 pounds, the this vacuum is easy to hold upright and use in its handheld mode with attachments.

In terms of storage, it includes a wall mount that you'll need to install, but it also stands on its own when leaned against a wall. This is different from the Tineco Pure ONE S15 Pet cordless we tested before, which had a charging base for its storage system that didn't require us to install a wall mount.

Maneuverability

This model sometimes stumbled when transitioning from smooth floors to taller mats or thick rugs.

We also found the head of the vacuum somewhat rigid. It tended to tilt instead of turning, making it a little tough to maneuver around obstacles, requiring greater user intent and a heavier hand to use effectively.

Maintenance

One feature we enjoyed was cleaning the pre-filters with an included attachment. This vacuum comes with two pre-filters for this reason, making this part of the process much easier.

However, maintaining the rest of the vacuum is a bit of a chore. A screwdriver is required to release the HEPA filter, which is slightly cumbersome and not common among stick vacuums. We would've preferred a tool-less process. Releasing the brush roll also requires a coin or something similar. Although it came out easily, a dedicated button here would be much preferred. It's a bit of a mixed bag here as we appreciated the pre-filter design, but the rest remains slightly annoying to manage and overshadows the results due to the cumbersome requirements of the rest of the process.

Uphostery & Attachments

We also tested the mini power brush attachment on upholstery to assess this model's capabilities thoroughly. We spread some coffee grounds on a pillow and an ironing board and attempted to remove them with the attachment mentioned above. It performed pretty well here, removing most coffee grounds from both surfaces. However, it left behind a few grounds, and the attachment brushed some coffee off the ironing board, which wasn't ideal. Nevertheless, it remains a fairly effective cleaner on these types of surfaces.

Battery

When we tested runtime, this cordless vacuum lasted just 28.5 minutes on its lowest setting and 10.75 minutes on high.

Those who need to clean a multi-level home at one time will likely need to recharge somewhere along the way. That will require an additional 3.5 hours to juice back up.

Should You Buy the Tineco Pure ONE S11?

Given that most modern homes have at least a little hardwood flooring, we can't fully recommend this model. If you primarily have carpeted flooring, you'll likely appreciate its power, but its overall performance at its MSRP price range is slightly lower than we expect.

What Other Stick Vacuum Should You Consider?