Roomba Review: Roomba 610 vs 625

All right so I thought I'd give a small review of my observations of one vs the other. We have Ronie "killer roomba" 610 and a newer arrival, my 625 I named Yoki. Now, I will start by saying that the snazzy looks of these models is the main thing that sets them apart from the 500s. The 500 and 600 series are pretty much interchangeable, and if you are just looking for a good roomba to clean your floors without costing you an arm and a leg, I'd honestly go for the 530 series. If scheduling abilities are important to you, I'd go with the 550 or 560. In terms of vacuuming performance there is essentially no difference between any of them based just on model, unless you add in an Aerovac bin. More important than the model is when it was manufactured.

And Aerovac bins don't come in metallic grey, which is the colour of our friends Ronie and Yoki here. So between these two upper end roombas, is there any appreciable difference? I originally assumed no, then the 625 arrived and I have had to somewhat revise my opinion.

First, it's a different colour {oooh!} I prefer the maroon to the orange personally, but think they both look pretty spiffy. Is there a performance difference? Yes. Right away I could see Yoki has the same improved soft touch and edge-hugging ability that my 581 has. He also docks great every time, much like Brody {581} and it appears that iRobot has used the same improved firmware for the 625 as in the 581 and, also, the 531 {more on that on another entry! Still doing testing on Gracie...}

So if you are going to splurge on one of these anyway, and price is not a factor, I have to recommend the 625. The 625 also comes with a green cleaning head module while Ronie here has the black one. Perhaps The 610s they are manufacturing now though probably also have the green.

One of my favourite things about the 600s is max mode. Very useful and I love it! Kudos to iRobot for bringing this function back. Max mode basically tells the Roomba to keep cleaning till it's just about ready to drop, though sometimes they clean till they drop. Ronie did that once, haven't had a chance to run Yoki through a full max mode session. More to come, of course.



For now here's a clip of these two Roombas painting the town, er, room, red :) Looks like they could max mode all night. Cute!