Good Suction but Annoying to Live With

I owned this little Dirt Devil until recently. I bought it at the local Target to work my way around the smallish apartment that I then lived in. It served its purpose until I moved into a larger home....being an adequate vacuum cleaner.

This model is a straight suction canister model. It comes equipped with an adjustable carpet nozzle, bare floor brush, dusting brush, crevice tool, and locking plastic wands. The tools, with the exception of the floor tools, store on a little caddy that clamps to the wands. It's a fairly convenient arrangement overall, but the caddy starts to flop around after a a year or two of use (this machine is all plastic).

This little vacuum has relatively powerful suction, and does a great job on edges, corners, bare floors, and low pile rugs. Don't expect much more than surface cleaning on carpets. The carpet nozzle lacks a revolving brush of any sort and the pile height adjustment makes little difference in how it cleans. The carpet nozzle does, however, have wheels, which makes it easy to push while you don't get your carpet deep cleaned. :-)


The canister itself has a clear dirt container that has a permanent filter inside. It also includes a micro filter for the exhaust and an optional HEPA exhaust filter can be purchased for $25 or so (they last a year--micro filters last about 6 months). This sounds wonderful and convenient, until you clean the filter. Basically, you're supposed to tap the the perma filter on the edge of the garbage can until dirt stops falling out of it. Count on pounding the living daylights out of it (with noise to boot) to get the dirt out of the pleats and restore the initial suction. Also, you will DEFINITELY want to do this outdoors if at all possible, since it raises quite the dust storm (defeating the purpose of microfiltration).

As far as other convenience factors, the machine is lightweight, and the separate floor brush with bristles comes in handy for larger expanses of smooth flooring. The cord lacks a cord reel, but there are retractable hooks to wind it around on the bottom of the machine. A final advantage is that this machine takes standard 1 1/4" attachments so you can add aftermarket venetian blind, ceiling fan cleaners, etc....to your heart's desire.

Overall, my experience with this machine wasn't precisely bad, but it's design and messiness made it annoying to live with. I have now given up on bagless cleaners, and finally bought a reconditioned Electrolux with SELF SEALING bags to replace it (and the bagless Kenmore canister I bought in the interim). The reconditioned machine cost less than $100, and happily outperforms either one. Plus, when the vacuum gets full, I pull the bag out, toss it, and pop in a new one. Simplicity and beauty :-)