Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner review

REVIEW – A clean house is a happy house! The Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner is designed to help you achieve that happiness through a lightweight, cordless design that specializes in pet hair (in addition to the rest of the dirt). How does it do? To the review!

The Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner is a cordless stick vacuum that works on carpet and hardwood floors, and is specifically designed to manage pet hair.

Your kit comes with the Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner, and adjustable dust pipe, 3 attachments (an electric floor brush, a 2-in-1 dusting brush, and a crevice nozzle), a power adaptor, and the rechargeable battery. The kit also includes a wall rack & drywall hardware for installation.

The Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner is a surprisingly lightweight build despite its size. It looks chunky, but weighs in at about 6 pounds in its heaviest configuration (with the extension tube and the electric floor brush). I should note that the Amazon product listing puts it at 4 pounds, but I don't get that when I have all those parts assembled.

Your primary mode of operation will be with the floor brush in place for general vacuuming. The unit comes with a telescoping dust tube that enables you to adjust the overall length by 10″. Push & hold that button on the underside of the barrel, and slide the tube to the desired length.

Here it is at full extension. I measured the total length end-to-end at 47″ fully extended, or 37″ at the shortest position.

The electric brush head is designed for maximum maneuverability, with a multidirectional armature that allows it to get around tight corners and under furniture.

The Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner's brush head is 10″ wide and boasts a powerful motorized brush cylinder with a "tangle free" design. Essentially it uses softer bristles in a unique pattern on the cylinder to avoid tangling long strings around it.

The brush head also includes a green headlight that Proscenic claims facilitates seeing dust and dirt on the floors. The picture below was taken in shadow for reference.

The brush head disconnects from the dust tube to make way for additional attachments with a button click.

One of your attachments is a dusting tool, which includes a brush head that can be slid back to expose a slotted vacuum head.

You can also remove the dust tube entirely from the vacuum, turning the unit into a hand vac.

I’m showing the crevice nozzle here in hand-vac mode, but all three attachments work on the dust pole or off the dust pole.

The "on" button is that pistol-style trigger on the grip. Click once to turn the vacuum on, and click again to turn it off.

Once you’re powered up, the LED on the top face of the Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner shows you your remaining battery and your power level.

That clover-looking icon at the bottom of the face is your power adjustment. You’ll tap it to toggle between the 4 levels of power, represented by 1 fan icon (low power) to 4 fans (high power). These power levels increase the suction power AND the brush speed if you’re using the electric brush head.

The lightweight battery is removed by pushing down the lock button and sliding the battery loose.

A power cord & adaptor are provided for charging. That blue light will blink while the unit is charging, and go dark when it hits full charge. We’ll talk more about power in the performance section, but I measured 60 minutes of vacuuming on the lowest setting with the electric brush head, and about 3.5 hours to recharge the battery from 0%.

When it comes time to empty the dust collector, you’ll find a button on the inside of the handle mechanism that pops it loose as shown below. Note that you’ll want to remove any attachments before you do this.

That's the HEPA filter on top of the canister (Proscenic includes two of these filters for you). There's an additional filter in the body of the unit, in the barrel above the trigger.

The bottom cap pops off with the press of a button to empty the chamber.

There's also a metal pre-filter in that chamber that you can see in the pic above. This catches a lot of the smaller gunk. This comes loose with a twist and gets cleaned with a quick brush-off.

There's really not much to the setup, but Proscenic does include a wall mount with your kit along with a set of screws and drywall anchors to mount it.

The rack includes posts for the attachments and a slot to hold the rest of the unit.

It's a nice addition and feels solid when mounted properly. Note that there is no integrated power port for the battery to charge. You’ll need a nearby outlet if you want to charge the battery while it's racked. I have this in a bedroom closet, so I charge the battery separately from an outlet in my office.

The Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner is really great for maneuverability and flexibility. Here I am using it with the dust tube set to the shortest and longest position. Look at the range! You can find a comfortable length for just about any height with the adjustable extension.

The armature of the electric brush head has a whole bunch of flexibility for twisting around corners and under things. It's great for tight spaces, getting under furniture, and squeezing into tight spaces.

I also really like the different attachments and the ability to use it with or without the extension pole. You can every corner and crevasse from the ceiling to the floor with ease.

The unit itself is quite chunky, however, which leads to different opinions about regular use. My son and I found it pretty easy to maneuver around but my wife (who is smaller, with smaller hands) found it to be uncomfortable and awkward. I totally get that. Look how big it is in my hands. It is lightweight, but that doesn't help with the bulk.

The glowy light kinda works? We noticed that it does highlight dust on hardwood, but saw it as less useful on carpet unless the area was dark as seen below.

The power of the Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner is very good and has been doing a fine job with pet heir in my pooch's favorite napping places. You can see from the pics above (the ones with the gunk) that it's collecting a wide variety of nasty business medium to low pile carpet & hardwood. The brush is pretty aggressive even on the lowest setting, and the multi-filtration system keeps the nasties in the dust chamber. All good there.

The big watch out regarding power, however, is that the battery drains quickly once you get off of low power. In my tests the battery lasted the as-advertised 60 minutes at the lowest setting, but only 10 minutes when running at max power. I got about 40 minutes at level 2 and under 20 minutes at level three, so the drop-off happens quickly. Not that I think you’ll need max power all the time, but you won't get more than a single room (maybe 2?) if you boost the power.

I’d also like to note that the build on the whole package is very good. It's primarily plastic and aluminum, but everything is solidly assembled. All of the connector clips and buttons are beefy and designed for repetitive use, as are the components of the vacuum and the brush head. I have zero concerns about durability based on my month of use.

Based on my experiences with the Proscenic P12 cordless vacuum cleaner, I think the ideal use case for this unit is smaller spaces where you may not need a full-size vacuum. A light-duty workshop or office, a finished basement, or a small apartment could use it as a primary vacuum with its great performance.

I realize that the battery size was probably a tradeoff for weight & size, but it really is the weak point in this product. Both my wife and my son killed the battery before completing a room on first use before we realized how quickly the battery can drain. The short battery life and long recharge time limit its use beyond a couple of rooms, and you won't get much more than one larger room if you need to max out the power. We use it on the second floor of the house as a supplemental vacuum so we don't have to drag the big boy out, and it works fine there as long as I keep it on the lowest setting. Forewarned is forearmed.

I’d also consider the overall size and bulk of the unit depending on your desired use. Some may find it awkward, and get better use out of a super lightweight alternative.

Price: $399.98Where to buy: AmazonSource: The sample of this product was provided by Proscenic.