Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra Review

Performance Comparison

Carpet Cleaning

The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is excellent when it comes to carpet cleaning and should be on a short list of models to consider if you have large carpeted areas to keep clean. Due to its importance, our carpet cleaning metric comprises 35% of each model's overall score.

For this metric, we tested each model's ability to clean a variety of messes, including rice, oats, cereal, and flour, and scored their performances based on the results. Our team performed each test on both low and high-pile carpets to simulate real-world applications.

The Dyson excelled in our rice and oatmeal tests, lifting the majority of each mess with a single pass, requiring very few follow-up passes to fully lift all debris. However, it was somewhat challenged by cereal and flour messes. It initially plowed some cereal and ground it to finer debris which it failed to pick up completely, and it wasn't able to lift all the flour used on our low pile carpet test, leaving some residue behind. Fortunately, in the case of flour, it ultimately cleaned the remaining mess with additional passes.

Ease of use

In our ease of use metric, responsible for 25% of each model's total score, the Dyson Ball Animal 3 did well and performed just behind the top three models we tested. It did an impressive job of edging, cleaning exceptionally close to walls, and only failing to pick up debris in the tightest corners. Its reach is great at over 35 feet, and it transitions surfaces well.

When it came to reaching under furniture, the Dyson is limited to 5.5 inches, and while you can take out the wand, it requires more steps than the 'lift-away' feature on other models.

Handling

We found the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra took a step back from previous models. The larger ball that the vacuum pivots around limits the maneuverability around furniture; even with a narrower vacuum head, the reach under furniture is limited to about 5.5 inches, which is well below average.

Hard Surface Cleaning

Our hard surface cleaning test metric, responsible for 10% of each model's overall score, again challenged each vacuum's ability to pick up four messes, rice, oatmeal, cereal, and flour. The Dyson Ball Animal did a great job of cleaning flour, and earned near-perfect marks. Unfortunately, it could not maintain this level of performance across the remaining hard surface tests.

Rice took multiple passes, making incremental improvements with each pass. However, when our team tested its ability to pick up oatmeal, it struggled again. Instead of making incremental improvements, it reached a point rather quickly where no progress was being made, and a minor mess of residual oatmeal was always left behind.

Its performance picking up cereal was dismal, and it couldn't complete the task. Surface type adjustments failed to make any improvement, and it simply could not do anything but displace cereal.

Overall, the Dyson earned a slightly below-average score for its hard surface cleaning performance compared to its peers.

Pet Hair

The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra did a near-perfect job of cleaning pet hair in our last metric, worth 10% of each vacuum's overall score. The Dyson lifted an impressive 99.99% of all the hair used in our test.

Should You Buy the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra?

The Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra is not a bad vacuum, but it's exceptionally expensive for an average vacuum, and there are many other vacuums that provide much greater value and performance at more affordable price points. As such, we can't recommend this model over a handful of other options that performed much better.

What Other Upright Vacuum Should You Consider?

At 40% of the price of the Dyson Ball Animal 3 Extra, the Shark Navigator Lift Away offers superior performance and would be a wiser financial decision. Of course, if budget is not a major concern and you are looking for the maximum performance from a vacuum, then you should look at the Shark Stratos, which offers premium performance, including near-perfect performance on hard surfaces, and costs a good amount less than the Dyson.