Narwal Freo X Plus robot vacuum review

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Narwal Freo X Plus ****** vacuum review

Narwal Freo X Plus two-minute review

The Narwal Freo X Plus is a budget-friendly ****** vacuum and mop that does many things well, but a few things fairly badly. If you’re just looking at the ***** and ***** list, the score of this review might not make sense as there are plenty more positives than negatives – but those few negatives can make for a frustrating experience. 

If you’re willing to put in the time to understand this model, it could potentially be one of the best ****** vacuums for you, especially if you’re on a budget. After all, most of the best vacuums that include mopping ability are not going to be this cheap, unless you get something manual like the Bissell CrossWave OmniForce. When it comes to ****** vacuums specifically, the price tag for great performance, feature set, and overall functionality goes way up.

The vacuuming performance of the Narwal Freo X Plus is very solid. However, like most budget models that just pull a single stationary pad across the floor, its mopping capability is just passable. Still, you’ll generally end up with clean floors. 

However, the Narwal Freo X Plus seems to have a mind of its own. Unless you just set it to clean your whole space in the most thorough way possible, you’ll end up with incomplete cleaning cycles. Or it might decide to head off on a different, unassigned job.

At least it has a tiny base station, so that the Narwal Freo X Plus is easier to place than most ****** vacuums. Another added benefit is that it’s possible to pair and use through a voice assistant like Alexa. All in all, the Narwal Freo X Plus is a somewhat capable ****** vacuum that comes with some frustrating aspects, such as its erratic cleaning behavior. But they may be worth dealing with if you’re on a budget, or just want to be able to do a basic, whole-home clean.

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Everything you’ll find in the box (Image credit: Future)

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: price & availability

• List price: $399.99 / AU$899 (about £310)
• Launch date: March 2024
• Available: US and Australia

The Narwal Freo X Plus is available in the US and Australia, with a list form of $399.99 / AU$899. That puts it in TechRadar’s budget price bracket, which is particularly significant when you consider it offers mopping as well as vacuuming functionality. Of course, whether it’s a good value buy or not will depend on whether you’re okay dealing with its navigational quirks. It will still deliver fairly clean floors, but can be a pain to deal with.

This is not necessarily unique to the Narwal Freo X Plus, as the recently reviewed Ecovacs Deebot N10 Plus came with its own quirky frustrations, not to mention weaker suction power than the Narwal, and it comes with a higher $649.99 / £499 / AU$999 price tag. It is, however, available in the *** unlike the Narwal, and comes with better mopping ability.

One of the strange things about the Narwal Freo X Plus is the fact that the company’s flagship, Narwal Freo X Ultra, offers much better cleaning performance along with a range of other bells and whistles. Granted, that one is far more expensive (the Ultra costs $1,399.99 / AU$2,299 – about £1,110), but it’s strange to see issues with the software given that it’s coming from the same company.

• Value for money score: 4 out of 5

Narwal Freo X Plus specs

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Power	7.800Pa
Bin capacity (onboard):	TBC
Bin capacity (base station):	None
Noise level:	53dB
Runtime:	254 minutes
Dimensions (robovac):	350 x 355 x 107mm / 13.78 x 13.97 x 4.21″
Dimensions (base station):	275 x 118 x 137mm / 10.8 x 4.65 x 5.39″
Weight:	9.37 lbs / 4.25kg (vacuum), 1.9 lbs / 0.86kg (base station)

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: design

• Compact base station
• Two side brushes and an anti-tangling brush roll
• Single, stationary mop pad

When taking a look at the Narwal Freo X Plus’ design, the first thing that jumps out is in regards to its teeny, tiny base station. Since its only function is to charge the ****** vacuum and give it a place to rest, it doesn’t need to do a lot. Still, it’s cute in its own way, not to mention makes it easier to find a good place in your space for the ****** vacuum. ******* models with self-emptying dustbins and water reservoirs, such as the flagship Narwal mentioned earlier, need a lot more space (although, of course, there are benefits of having these capabilities built-in).

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Because it doesn’t have self-empty capabilities, the dock is compact (Image credit: Future)

As far as the ****** vacuum itself, it has the typical rounded shape. There are two side brushes instead of one, giving it a leg up on the vacuuming front compared to models that only have one side brush. The main brush roll is of the anti-tangling kind so you won’t find it wrapped with hair, something that’s not always considered on budget ****** vacuums.

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The underside of the Freo X Plus, with side brushes unclipped (Image credit: Future)

The mop pad is of the single, flat variety that sits along the bottom back half of the unit. While it does apply some downward pressure, it doesn’t do much in the way of scrubbing. I’ll talk a little more about how this affects its performance below, but just know that this is normal for budget models and that more expensive ones seem to completely abandon this approach in favor of dual spinning mop pads.

Regarding the manual controls, there are just two buttons – a power button and a home button, each with a secondary function (start/pause/resume cleaning and child lock, respectively).

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Remove the magnetic cover to reveal water reservoir and dust cup (Image credit: Future)

The Narwal Freo X Plus is a fairly sleek looking ****** vacuum in its all-white aesthetic. That’s partially because it covers its small water reservoir and dustbin with a glossy white top that stays in place due to some cleverly placed magnets. Both the reservoir and dustbin are easily removable and easy to fill up or empty, respectively.

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: performance

• Very good vacuuming
• Mopping is just okay
• Erratic behavior in how it cleans

There are a couple different factors to consider with a ****** vacuum’s performance, but the core one is vacuuming. Luckily, the Narwal Freo X Plus does a very good job here. Thanks to having two side brushes, it’s able to get debris on either side of it. Since it has an anti-tangle brushroll, it’s able to tackle aside from charge cords (the kryptonite of all ****** vacuums).

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The dustbin is easy to empty (Image credit: Future)

I ran this ****** vacuum in a house with two French Bulldogs as well as four ****** humans, two of whom have long hair, and it did a great job keeping the floor clean, picking up everything from smaller dust-like particles to debris the size of a leaf. It also picked up hair without issue and without any tangling. I even tested it with a pile of sugar and cereal and it took one pass to ***** it all up. 

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The Freo X sucked up both fine debris and chunkier spillages with ease (Image credit: Future)

I used it on tile, hardwood floors, and a small but thick bath mat. In terms of just vacuuming, this ****** vacuum has the goods regardless of the surface. The Narwal Freo X Plus has 7800 Pa of suction power, which isn’t the highest on the market, but based on my tests is still enough to deal with most household cleaning requirements. 

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Mopping performance is a little weaker (Image credit: Future)

Its mopping capability is a little less stellar. I would actually describe it as okay. Since it has the one pad, it’s only applying downward pressure. So, somewhat dried pieces of mud in the foyer that a ****** vacuum with spinning mop pads would pick up are unaffected. More frustratingly, unless I used the highest mopping humidity setting, it didn’t always wet the entire area it mopped, leaving slightly streaky results. If you are going to use this ****** vacuum for mopping, my recommendation is to use the highest settings and be prepared to regularly refill the water reservoir.

As far as getting to the edges, it does well with vacuuming, thanks to those two side brushes, but doesn’t really get all that close when mopping.

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It gets nice and close to the edges of rooms when vacuuming (Image credit: Future)

The object avoidance, on the other hand, is pretty good. It won’t necessarily give a wide berth to any randomly placed object but it will brush up against it. When I placed the bath mat down, the Narwal Freo X Plus vacuumed right up to it on all sides before deciding it could tackle it. Only then did it vacuum it.

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It took a little time, but the Freo X eventually realized it could vacuum my bathmat (Image credit: Future)

Where the Narwal Freo X Plus falls short is in how it decides to clean. When I use the Freo Advice setting in the app, it will take the strangest path. Maybe it’s only picking up certain debris on its sensor, but it will clean up maybe 20% of the area that it should. Also concerning, when I run to only clean a particular room, it will decide to move onto another room after finishing its initial job and start vacuuming there instead of returning to the base station. It’s frustrating enough that I would rather have it clean the entire space instead of attempting to do any kind of spot cleaning.

• Performance score: 3.5 out of 5

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: app

• Easy-to-use app
• Mapping has some shortcomings
• Works well with third-party voice support

The Narwal Freo app is pretty straightforward to use, from setup to choosing the kind of cleaning you want to accomplish (vacuum only, vacuum and mop, and vacuum then mop). It’s also a fairly attractive looking app. I didn’t ever feel lost navigating to various settings, whether it’s adjusting the specific cleaning settings such as suction power or mopping humidity or opening up the schedule to plan a cleaning.

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(Image credit: Future)

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(Image credit: Future)

The map is pretty easy to use, and you can even see a 3D representation of your mapped space. Of course, it suffers from the same editing shortfalls of a lot of ****** vacuum apps, where you’re limited on how you partition your space. If you have an open or semi-open floor plan like the space that I often test in, you’ll only be able to partition once as you can’t section a partitioned space in half.

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Erratic route-planning in action (left) and issues with open-plan spaces (right) (Image credit: Future)

On the bright side, setting it up with third-party control – I tested it with

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Alexa – was fairly easy to do. The only quirk is knowing the very specific phrases that it can understand. “Alexa, run the ****** vacuum” doesn’t work, while “Alexa, ask my ****** to start cleaning” does.

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: battery

• Very long battery life
• Will return to base when getting low

Possibly because the Narwal Freo X Plus is a bit lighter on features than more expensive units or possibly because it doesn’t have spinning mop pads, its battery life of up to 254 minutes is quite a bit longer than what I usually see with ****** vacuums. For reference, most units these days have up to 210 minutes of use.

While that’s more than enough battery life for even fairly large spaces, the ****** vacuum will return to its base when necessary for an extra charge before continuing on with its task if it’s running out of juice.

• Battery score: 5 out of 5

Should you buy the Narwal Freo X Plus ****** vacuum?

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Scorecard

Attribute	Notes	Rating
Price	Very affordable – and especially for a vac-mop combo – but comes with some quirks that affect its value.	4/5
Design	Small base station, comes with two side brushes, but uses a rudimentary mop pad.	4/5
Performance	Very good at vacuuming and okay at mopping, but has some erratic behavior in what it decides to clean.	3.5/5
App	Easy to use, though the mapping has some deficiencies when dealing with open plan spaces.	4/5
Battery	Very good and more than most people would ever need.	5/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Narwal Freo X Plus robovac review: also consider

How I tested the Narwal Freo X Plus

To test the Narwal Freo X Plus, I used it for a couple weeks to vacuum and mop the hardwood floors and a bath mat (to simulate carpeting) in my house. I also tested all the features listed in the app, from mapping to scheduling. I took note of how well the vacuum cleaned the edges of a room as well as around obstacles, not to mention running how the handheld vacuum performed.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed September 2024

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