This is one of the cheapest robot vacuums on Amazon right now - and we've tested it

I've been lucky enough to test some absolutely amazing robot vacuum cleaners in my time as a consumer technology writer. It's not unusual to be unboxing appliances that cost as much as £1,500.

And while these cutting-edge, top-spec gadgets are obviously extremely competent, I'm acutely aware that their price point puts them out of the reach of normal folk.

So I recently jumped at the chance of testing a robot vacuum you can buy for a tenth of the price.

I often see them popping up on Amazon, from brands I know little about, and they usually promise some remarkable traits and features.

But what do you really get for your money? Is buying a bargain robot vacuum a false economy, or is it actually something you could learn to live with?

It's time to unbox the Lubluelu SL68, then. I've been looking forward to using this machine, because it retails at a thoroughly reasonable £189.99, but there's an offer that has started today bringing the price down to £124.96. It's a limited-time deal on Amazon, and it brings this robotic appliance down to around half the price of a decent manual vacuum. Remarkable.

But is it any good? First things first, there are some things you obviously don't get with a robot vacuum costing little more than £100.

There's no self-emptying base station, for example. No oscillating mops, and no air-drying facility. Blimey, I've just realised how spoiled I sound.

It's quite impressive to tick off what you do get, though. It has LiDar which I still believe is the best navigation system out there.

It does have a mop pad, and that's serviced by a water tank that's in a combined unit with the dust tank. Which is appropriate, because the two tasks are carried out together. The vacuum sucks up the dust from the front of the robot, while the mop leaves a sheen as it passes.

The suction power is a fairly impressive 4,500pa and I like the way it adjusts the suction automatically using sensors. So, for example, if it hits a carpet or rug, it knows it needs more grunt.

This, of course, can help with battery life, but I've had no problems getting it to run for several sessions between charges.

Setting it up was a bit of a fiddly process. It uses the Smart Life app, which I'm quite familiar with, but it took a few attempts to get it logged in to my WiFi.

Once up and running, the app works well, and creating maps, setting up spot cleaning areas or no-go zones is pretty easy. It's by no means the most polished interface for a robot vacuum, but it's pretty good.

Ground clearance proved a bit of an issue for the Lubluelu SL68. It struggled a bit to get up one or two of my rugs, but it's a plucky little thing, and doesn't give up easily. So I never had to step in and give it an undignified leg-up.

I genuinely can't aim any complaints about the vacuuming performance, especially taking the price into consideration. It might struggle with dog hair in the long term, because it lacks some of the trick de-tangling tech you get with premium robot vacuums, but I actually didn't notice any problems myself.

Obviously, a fixed mop head can only do so much to mop up big messes or stains, and it's no use on carpets, but it does give floors a good wipe. It's ideal on laminates, for example. Less useful on tiles, but it's better than not having any sort of mopping function.

It hasn't fallen down my stairs, it's been working fine with Alexa and Google Home, and having a compact charging base rather than a bulky self-emptying station has actually been quite refreshing.

I'm not going to pretend this is a device that will outperform a top Eufy or Roomba robot vacuum because, obviously, it won't. There are corners cut and there are performance differences.

But nowhere near as many as I expected. I honestly though I'd be packing the Lubluelu away with a "never again" sticker on the box, but it just doesn't deserve it.

If you can catch the deal, if you can get one of these for £125, I really don't think you'll be disappointed.

Even for the original price of £189.99, it's a remarkably solid performer.

Of course, I won't be swapping it for the £850 Dreame L4 Ultra that's currently set up in my living room, but I'm amazed at how close it gets in terms of performance, despite it being a world away in terms of price.