This popular table vacuum is my new favorite way to clean up crumbs

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Can’t clean wide variety of messes

By the time Friday rolls around, we all know what our desks look like: A sprawling mess of paperwork, notes, and crumbs from deskside lunches and afternoon snacks. For a quick clean-up, you need a table vacuum.

What looks like a miniature version of your favorite robot vacuum, is the Odistar Desktop Vacuum. This table vacuum can supposedly suction up all the crumbs your countertop has hiding.

With over 11,000 reviews on Amazon, I had to see if this table vacuum is worth the hype.

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This tiny wonder can tackle small clean-up on hard surfaces like tabletops and desks.

Measuring three inches wide and two-and-a-half inches in height, this table vacuum is tiny. The square shape fits in the palm of my hand and is easy to pick up and put down as it weighs about a quarter of a pound. This is a manual vacuum so once you turn it on the suction starts and you need to guide it in your hand. Since it doesn't move on its own, there's no fear of it running off the table if you walk away while it's on.

On the bottom of the vacuum are 20 tiny tufts of brush bristles that sweep against surfaces to rustle up crumbs that will be suctioned up through the circular shoot on the bottom of the device.

It comes in three models, each offering a different power option: battery, USB, or wireless charging. There’s an on and off switch on the side of the vacuum to help power it up.

The vacuum doesn't have a bag for the collected debris, instead debris collects in an easily accessible, small chamber.

The small bristles located on the bottom of this device are perfect for dust and other small particles that land on your desk.

The whole process of cleaning with this table vacuum took less than 20 seconds from switching on the device, sweeping it over the crumbs on my kitchen counter to admiring the clean surface.

One of my biggest pet peeves when cleaning my counters is that it’s a two-step process. First, you have to wipe away any crumbs before spraying down your counter to get rid of any sticky and greasy messes that happened during dinner prep. Usually, I do a lazy sweep of the counters to get rid of the crumbs but this vacuum made that step go by quicker and gave a deeper clean.

With the Odistar table vacuum, you manually glide it over surfaces and let the brushes on the bottom rustle up any crumbs, which are then suctioned up.

While the suction on this machine is weak in comparison to an upright vacuum, of course, it’s adequate for the crumbs like flour, cracker crumbs, or dust bunnies. I only needed to do one pass over my counters to get everything cleaned up.

As an apartment dweller, I have to be selective about the appliances and cleaning products I bring home. I have incredibly limited storage space.

Because this table vacuum is so compact, it’s a no-brainer to add to my cleaning arsenal. It can be stored in the cleaning cabinet or left on the counter without occupying much space.

It’s also the perfect size for storing on my work desk. My desk area gets cluttered quickly, but the countertop vacuum is so small it conveniently fits underneath my monitor riser and out of the way.

Keep in mind that the Odistar Desktop Vacuum isn't like a traditional vacuum so its suction isn't as strong.

With a clearance of one-eighth inch, this table vacuum is limited in the kind of messes that it can pick up. In my day-to-day life, I was only picking up crumbs and dust on my desk and kitchen counter. The vacuum was handling the small stuff with ease, so I wanted to know what the limitations of the tabletop vacuum could be.

I created a pseudo obstacle course for this little vacuum to see if it could pick up breadcrumbs, rice, oats, and chocolate chips.

As expected, it did a great job at picking up breadcrumbs, clearing the surface in no time. It was less efficient at picking up oats as it suctioned up only half of what was spilled on the counter.

When it came to rice, the vacuum could travel over the grains, but it couldn’t suck them up. Chocolate chips were a lost cause as the vacuum was too short to glide over them and ended up just pushing them around.

While this vacuum is that it’s easy to empty, it’s also very easy to spill all the contents you just vacuumed up. The first time I went to open the compartment where debris is vacuumed into, I ended up spilling everything back onto the counter.

There’s no bag that the debris is collected in, so it just hangs out in the compartment that is easily accessed. While this is great in that it’s easy to empty, I learned the hard way that you must do it over a trash can to avoid an even bigger mess.

I anticipated this gadget being a little kitschy and maybe an unnecessary addition to my cleaning rotation, however, I love this tabletop vacuum cleaner.

It is small and easy to stash out of the way when not in use. The suction power is impressive and quickly sucks up crumbs on your counters and tabletops.

This is great for the person who is prone to crumbs covering every surface. I wouldn’t recommend it for families who are cleaning up larger food scraps left behind by kids, but it’s great if you need to bid farewell to graham cracker crumbs left over at snack time.

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Can’t clean wide variety of messes

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