3.1 kg – light enough to lift onto shelves or use overhead for cobwebs. Cord length: 7 metres – decent, but you’ll still swap plugs in a medium-sized house.
Model range: FC9172, FC9173, FC9174 Type: Bagless corded stick vacuum Best for: Small apartments, hard floors, quick daily clean-ups Overview The Philips Activator Zoom sits in a curious spot: it looks like a lightweight stick vacuum but behaves almost like a full-size upright. Designed for homes with a mix of hard floors and low-to-medium pile carpets, its headline feature is the LED-lit TriActive Zoom nozzle – a wide, illuminated cleaning head designed to reveal dust you’d otherwise miss. But does a clever light make up for a small dustbin and corded limitations? I tested the FC9172 for two weeks in a one-bedroom flat with laminate, tiles, and a living room rug. Design & Build Quality (7/10) Philips has kept things refreshingly simple. The Activator Zoom is almost entirely plastic, but it feels sturdy, not brittle. The main body houses the cyclone, filter, and 0.6‑litre dust cup – which is undeniably small. The wand is aluminium, and the handle is ergonomically curved with a rubberised grip. activator zoom philips
Emptying the bin is a two-step process: pull a latch to open the bottom, then manually pick out hair wrapped around the cyclone cone. It’s messy, and dust puffs back into the air – not great for allergy sufferers. Philips includes a washable HEPA-style exhaust filter, which helps but doesn’t solve the emptying cloud. Noise measured around 78 dB on hard floors – quieter than many full-size uprights but louder than modern cordless sticks. The cord is long, but the lack of automatic cord rewind is a miss. You’ll manually wrap it around two hooks on the back. Designed for homes with a mix of hard