Rowenta Intensium RO6629

Rowenta has two ranges of bagless vacuum: the big Silence Force, with a large bin and "quiet" suction, and the more recent, compact Intensium.

The Rowenta site doesn't give a great deal of info on it. There is some spec information (energy consumption at 1900 W, 31 kPa) and that's all.

Ease of use

The bin capacity is small: just 1.2 litres but the larger one on the Silence Force wasn't necessarily fully used. The Silence Force filter gets dirty quickly and requires regular cleaning before the full capacity is reached.

We like one detail in particular in the design of the small bin: the panel makes emptying it easy. This gets rid of another of the problems on the Silence Force, that of the suction of air generated by the central filter when you open it. Here, there's no obstruction.

The compactness of the bin is in the image of the vacuum itself (5 Kg instead of 7 for the larger model). This is then, a small mobile vacuum that's easy to handle and will do well on small to medium surface areas.

The rest is however less impressive. You only get the standard brush, the Delta Silence, on the basic version of the Intensium. No hard floor brush, nor a standard one, no other accessories such as the "mini turbo brush", you get with the Intensium Eco-intelligence. Another minimal difference: the basic Intensium uses a Hepa 12 filter instead of the Hepa 13 on the higher end models. This shouldn't affect your choice.

Here's a picture of what you get with the Intensium Eco-intelligence for you:



Suction: modest but constant

8 seconds from beginning to end to suck up two litres of dry rice: the RO6629 isn't the fastest. The RO8049 takes 5 seconds!

Surface	Score
Lino
Floorboards
Carpet tile
Deep-pile carpet

You can see that it is less effective across various surfaces. Even on hard surfaces, two sweeps are needed to suck up our test substances, where most of the competition only requires one. It also proved very average, even poor, on carpet tile and deep-pile.

It is nevertheless much better than the Silence Force on one point: its filter didn't get at all dirty throughout the tests. Before testing it weighed 100 grammes, after: 100 grammes. There's no loss in suction power, nor frequent or extensive maintenance required. And you don't get any cocoa leaks through the joints; this is far from systematic on the competition.

Noise

We scored it at 70 dB, the same as the Silence Force. This puts it at the quieter end of bagless vacuums. Models with bags can get as low as 60 dB. The noisiest of bagless vacuums get up to 80 dB.

Energy consumption

Ouch, it consumes 2000 watts during suction, where others, with better efficiency, use just 1400 watts.