Samsung Jet 85 Pet review: powerful, ergonomic and easy to use

The Jet 85 Pet cordless vacuum is Samsung’s flagship contender in the fiercely competitive pet vacuum market. Targeting frustrated pet owners, it offers the powerful suction and specialized tools needed to tackle the stubborn pet hair and endless dirt that are part and parcel of living with four-legged fur balls.

We have two extremely hirsute spaniels – Milo and Tess – as well as two equally woolly ponies. The equines don’t live indoors obviously but you wouldn’t know it by the amount of horsehair our daughters drag in on their clothing and tack. This level of hairiness means I am always happy to test out vacuums that promise to help me keep on top of the mayhem.

Boasting 210W of suction power, which you can genuinely feel as you vacuum, the Samsung Jet 85 Pet did a decent job of taming the dust bunnies, and removing dirt and dander from our carpets, sofas and cushions. Although the build quality wasn’t awful, the design didn’t blow my mind and I’m not convinced it qualifies as the best vacuum cleaner ever made. However, if you find one at a good price, you could certainly do a lot worse than the Samsung Jet 85 Pet.

I tested this Samsung Jet 85 Pet cordless model out for three weeks to see how well it coped in our hairy home. Here’s what you should know before you buy.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet: Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Price and availability

The Samsung Jet 85 is available on Samsung’s website in America for $499.99, and on Amazon for the same price.

In the UK it costs £479 direct from Samsung, but you can get it for less on Amazon – quite a lot less actually, £329.

The model I tested is the UK version in Woody Green, while the one sold to the US market is Misty White and doesn’t have Pet in the name. However, it comes with the Pet Tool+ and has all the same spec as the one reviewed here.

There are six models in Samsung’s Jet cordless range, and this Jet 85 is pitched near the middle price wise. The top-end Jet AI, $999.99, offers auto-emptying and intelligent power adaption that senses the floor type and dirt levels and automatically adjusts the suction. At the entry-level, the Jet 60 Pet, $329.99, will save you some dollars but you’ll sacrifice power and battery life.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Design

The box contents(Image credit: Future)

The charging display(Image credit: Future)

Opening the bin (Image credit: Future)

With the Pet Tool+ (and an unimpressed Tess)(Image credit: Future)

My first impression of the Samsung Jet 85 was a bit lackluster. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the design, but there’s nothing terribly exciting about it either (and yes, I do get excited by product design, it comes with the job). Sure, the LCD display is smart enough, and the main body is streamlined, but it’s definitely not Dyson-grade sexy, nor Tineco-grade whizzy-looking on the tech front.

My second impression was “hell, yes” to its lightness. I thought my own cordless, Miele’s Duo HX1, was feather-light at 3.1kg, but the Samsung Jet 85 Pet is significantly lighter at 2.63kg. Admittedly, neither model is a dead-weight, but if you suffer with RSI in your wrists, as I do, or any other limited strength issues, every once can make a difference during prolonged use.

The other main highlight design-wise is its handle comfort. It’s astonishing how many cordless vacuum designers get this wrong, resulting in arm/hand ache within minutes. Here, the handle sits neatly in my hand, at the right angle and, crucially, you don’t have to hold the power switch in for it to work.

The battery clips in and out smoothly (you can buy a spare to double cleaning duration) and the LCD screen has nice big, clear digits for those of us in their 40s who are ignoring the need for reading glasses! Above the screen is a simple power switch with plus and minus signs for scrolling through the four power levels (Min, Mid, Max and Jet).

I also appreciated its wall-mounted storage holder clip that connects to the mains charger. This means charging begins as soon as you dock, without needing to locate the charger hold and stick in the cable manually. It’s the little things in life…

What I did not appreciate was the overall build quality. The main vacuum unit seems solid and smooth and well-made, but the pipes, tools and connections are flimsier than I was expecting from the Samsung brand. Clipping the attachments on and off isn’t the smooth process it could or should be. Another noteworthy thing is the dustbin capacity is relatively small at 0.8L.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Ease of use

As already mentioned, this is a lightweight vacuum with an ergonomically designed handle, so I wasn’t surprised by how effortless it was to use. It pivots down low at the floorhead joint to get under furniture, and glides along both hard floors and carpets easily. Except in Jet mode, when it actually becomes quite hard to push over carpet – but that’s immensely satisfying, am I right?!

The Samsung Jet 85 Pet comes with one main floorhead (although it looks like it comes with two on the website), called the Jet Dual Brush. This could be wider, and lacks any lighting, which I did miss, especially when vacuuming into dark corners and under the kitchen kickboards. The floorhead is motorized – always good news – and has a really soft, small roller brush at the front, which is designed to pick up large dirt particles on hard floors. Then a bigger main roller, with both rubber and brush beaters, is designed to dig pet hair out of every orifice in your home. The clear plastic top is handy for spotting any trapped items – in our house that’s usually hairpins and straw. There’s also an Object Stuck alert on the LCD screen.

While switching between attachments and into handheld mode is easy enough, the process does feel a little cheap and clunky. However, the little Pet Tool + is also easy to maneuver and is small enough to get into the corners of upholstery but not so small it takes an age. It is also motorized and very effective. You’ll also get a combination tool, crevice tool with pull out extender and a bendy adapter. This is a clip-on joint piece that is designed for using the attachment tools at a right-angle, for example when vacuuming the tops of wardrobes or curtain tops.

The charging base only has space to host the two main attachments, not the Pet Tool+ which is rather bulky. But the unit is quite a clever beast because it can be wall mounted, or used stand-alone anywhere you like. Just slide the battery off, chuck the vacuum in the cupboard and then pop the battery in the charger wherever you have a plug to spare.

With the exception of Miele’s Triflex HX2, every cordless vacuum I’ve tested cannot stand up on its own, and the Samsung Jet 85 is similarly unwieldy. Basically, if you want to put it down mid-clean, to move a chair/dog toy/small child for example, just do yourself a favor and place it flat on the floor. If you attempt to prop it against the wall or sofa etc, it will crash to the floor in an alarming manner.

I’m embarrassed to admit it took me ages to find the input hole in the charging base for the charging cable to slot into. It’s tucked in the back but not where you might expect to find it, and the instruction booklet gives no clues. I found it eventually. Here’s a picture so you don’t waste any time!

The bin has a reasonable capacity for this style of cleaner, and it was very easy to empty. The whole bin canister clips off, so there’s no need to poke about with a stick to dislodge debris and compacted dust. I didn’t find it quite as easy to clip back into position, and a couple of times the bin clattered to the ground after I thought it had clipped in successfully and it clearly had not. There’s a tiny, cup-shape filter in the top of the bin unit. Easy to get in and out, and to wash under the tap but it would be nice to have a spare so there’s plenty of drying time.

Allergy suffers may well appreciate this vacuum’s five-stage filter system, which includes a washable cyclone filter, a fine dust filter and the washable filter, which, according to Samsung, traps 99.999% of dust. I don’t really have any way of testing how effective the filters are, except that we do have two allergy suffers in residence and their symptoms didn’t change during the testing process.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Performance

While I have vacuumed with stick models that felt more powerful – the bagged Henry Quick has my top vote on suction so far – the Jet 85 Pet is no slouch on the sucking front. A combination of 210W motor and seriously spinny 4000rpm floorhead resulted in thoroughly clean carpets and hard floors throughout our four-bed home. How did I know this? Because the dustbin was satisfyingly full, despite cleaning every day (downstairs at least, nobody vacuums upstairs more than once a week, do they?).

To check cleaning power slightly more scientifically, I tried flour and oats on both carpet (a flatweave) and engineered wood flooring. The Samsung Jet 85 Pet performed admirably on all, and mainly in the lowest Min power mode. I only felt the need to kick it up to Mid mode on the flour/carpet test but I never needed to push it to Max. Admittedly the oats were a bit slippery on the wood flooring, meaning I had to do the tilt up and reverse technique that is often required to draw bigger debris into the path of suction.

Flour on hard floors(Image credit: Future)

Oats on hard floors(Image credit: Future)

Flour on carpet(Image credit: Future)

Oats all gone(Image credit: Future)

In general use, I also noticed a propensity for the main floor head to push bigger debris around rather than suck them up. Nothing small but stuff like straw, twigs and other fauna the dogs like to bring in (normally on their ears) after our forest walks. Fellow spaniel owners will no doubt feel my pain. Adopting the tilt and reverse worked a dream but it was mildly tedious. Looking at the floorhead design, it’s not that surprising as the soft roller at the front doesn’t allow sufficient ground clearance for anything bigger than a porridge oat to get underneath.

If you are looking primarily for pet-hair performance, this is a strong contender. The clever little Pet Tool+ plucks out the stickiest of hairs, even on our kitchen sofa, which has a very tricky weave, almost like Boucle, that’s like magnet to their fur. Obviously, this is the one sofa (out of a possible four in the house) that Tess and Milo both favor. For dog beds and upholstery, the Samsung Jet 85 Pet is more than worthy of having pet in its name.

Battery life

Samsung claims that the Jet 85 will run for one hour — that's wishful thinking on their part, but I did manage to get a fair 46 minutes on its lowest setting. Pushing things to the Max, I got 10 minutes. That's half of what Samsung claims, but you really shouldn't need this amount of power for longer. In Jet mode I had to move very quickly to get anything cleaned within the seven minutes I had on the clock before the battery died. During the three weeks trial, I only used Jet mode to a couple of times, and once was only to test the battery life. It’s nice to have but not entirely necessary.

Noise levels

Noise-wise, this vacuum is pretty average. In Min mode the decibel monitor App I use recorded around 67dB, which didn’t offend my rather sensitive ears. Max mode ramped things up to closer to 78dB, while Jet mode tipped over the 80dB mark with a recording of 82.6dB. That was on vinyl flooring, which is the noisiest floor type in my home but at no point did I feel annoyed or like my neighbours would give me a ragging for disturbing the peace.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet Cordless Cleaner review: Comparison

One of the popular cordless features is self-emptying, which is where you park it next to a base unit and the bin gets emptied automatically, reducing your physical interaction with dirt. If this sounds like a bit of you, I recommend you check the Shark Cordless PowerDetect Clean & Empty Vacuum.

Those loyal to the Samsung brand might consider the Samsung Bespoke Jet Cordless Stick Vacuum with Clean Station which also offers self-emptying and the same cleaning power but doesn’t come with the Pet Tool+ (you can buy one separately if you have pets).

If pet hair is your biggest bugbear when cleaning your home, I can personally recommend the Miele DuoFlex HX1 for a hair-free life (on your floors, not person). The bin capacity is rather lacklustre but the build quality is far superior and I really can’t fault this cordless vacuum.

Samsung Jet 85 Pet Cordless Cleaner review: Verdict

The Samsung Jet 85 Pet is a powerful cordless vacuum designed for homes with pets and delivers on its promise to de-hair and de-fluff without any fuss. Does it do so with grace? No. But if you just want a vacuum that gets the job done, without space-craft lighting and confusing computer screens, this could well the cordless vacuum you need.

Pros include its lightweight design, easy manoeuvrability, and a multi-layered filter that traps as many allergens as it’s possible for a vacuum to trap (probably), making it perfect for pet owners concerned about air quality.

It comes with all the attachments you need, and none you don’t, including a pet tool for tackling fur on upholstery and carpets. The battery life isn’t going to blow your mind, especially if you insist on vacuuming in Jet mode, and the dustbin capacity is relatively small.

It's not the most exciting vacuum cleaner, but as a pet owner, I was quietly impressed.