Pros: Cheap, Small, Initially Powerful, Good for Basic Tasks
Cons: LOUD, Loses Suction, Bad on Hard Flooring, Pain to Maintain
The Bottom Line: Time for a Dyson! This is a cute vacuum and it was good for the basics, but it just can't handle the work required of a serious vacuum.
domesticgod's Full Review: Eureka Optima 431A Bagless Upright Vacuum
**Update as of August 2008 - I just used a Bissell Velocity on my floor, and it extracted a full measuring cup (solid handful) of silt from my 650 sq ft of carpeting. I believe this indicates that it is not able to extract fine particles due to weight and/or lack of suction.
This little machine has guts, and I loved it to pieces for the first year of ownership. The problem seems to be in keeping its productivity after about a year of use.
This vacuum was a new purchase for a small bachelor's apartment with absolutely horrible industrial carpet. The machine did really well for the first year. It's small and maneuverable, and the collapsing handle makes it easy to store away in a place without much surplus space. The only downside to its squat design (with the telescoping handle) is that it tends to be bottom-heavy, and therefore requires more arduous pushing to change direction than other vacuums. In 600 sq ft, it's fine, but I wouldn't want to try shoving the thing around a significantly larger home.
This machine is LOUD. I assume this is due to making such a small apparatus perform with suction equivalent to a full-size upright cleaner, but if you don't want your ears to ring after vacuuming or have psychotic pets, this is not the vacuum for you. Additionally, the vacuum blows exhaust air out and downward from the front. This leads me to believe it would be useless in a home with a lot of pet hair, as it would blow it around in front of the intake rather than inhaling it. Let's hit the specifics:
CARPET: It beats the heck out of it, and the suction lives up to the hype (at first). One thing to keep in mind is that this is not a cyclonic vacuum cleaner - it just pretends to be. While the dirt does spin around in the cylinder, it all eventually flies right into the relatively small filter, which plugs up faster than a four-year-old with a box of chocolates. This vacuum doesn't groom carpet very well, tending to leave it looking chunky rather than neatly combed. I attribute this to the vacuum's weight, which is centered on the wheels instead of the brush strip, which means it doesn't have much opportunity to arrange the fibers in a single pass.
HARD FLOOR: The wheels on this vacuum are cheap plastic, with rather sharp edges. I wouldn't recommend pushing it around on any good floors, because it will scratch them. Additionally, it doesn't perform very well on hard surfaces for any debris other than light hair or lint. Larger crumbs and such tend to be pushed around instead of inhaled. As mentioned above, the exhaust air coming out the front blows dirt away from the vacuum on hard floors, which means you have to reverse-vacuum if you want to pick anything up.
HOSE: Stretchy and attached to the bottom of the vacuum. Thanks to the bottom-heaviness of the machine, the vacuum won't come crashing over if you pull on the hose really hard. The hose is a bit short, but gets the job done most of the time. One problem is that dust tends to cling to the inside of it, and unless you shake the heck out of the hose while the machine is still on, this dust will slowly fall out onto the bottom portion of the machine when the hose is holstered.
FILTER: Tiny, prone to quickly clogging, and requires frequent, unpleasant maintenance. Brushing it out is disgusting and surrounds you with a cloud of filth. It is allegedly washable, but doing so causes it to smell like wet dog - for good. If the filter isn't cleaned out thoroughly every time it's used, the vacuum won't suck much, will shriek loudly (instead of its usual screaming), and it will overheat and shut off in about 15 minutes of use.
DUST CUP: Difficult to clean thoroughly, thanks to the long pipe that dominates most of the interior. Emptying it is no joy either, as you have to bang it to shake out the dust that clumps up at the bottom, which will befoul your clothing.
LONGEVITY: This machine is declining. After moving to a new condo with good, soft carpet, the vacuum's power has started to steadily drop. Replacing and cleaning the filter has not resolved the problem, and every time I vacuum it leaves an ever-larger lump of lint on the carpet at the end of every stroke. It's getting really annoying.
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