Dyson Motorhead Animal - Product Review

 

Mrs. Bugbear's vacuum gave up the ghost last week so on Friday we bought a Dyson Motorhead Animal. I'm going to divide this product review into two parts.  The first will be the features that blow and the second will be features that suck.  Given that this is a vacuum we're talking about, sucking is good and blowing is bad.

First, the features that blow.

• The price blows, at $750CDN the vacuum is almost the price of a central vacuum (the vacuum only not the piping and installation).
• The cutesy ON/OFF switch should be in the handle not the vacuum body and the hose is about a foot or two too short.  
• The ergonomics of the handle, frankly, blow dead bears.  I'm of average height and I have to crane my wrist uncomfortably when I'm using the hard floor head.  When the wand is collapsed it's too long and there's no way to disconnect the handle from the hose.    With all the unnecessary plastic on the extendable wand it is uncomfortably heavy to use.  
• The cord reel seems rather stiff and I frequently ended up pulling the plug out of the outlet when moving the vacuum.  
• The chamber that collects dirt and debris seems to have a small capacity which means that I had to empty it frequently.  
• The brush head trails on the floor when it's stowed on the vacuum, this really blows.

Boy does this vacuum suck though!  I mean I didn't know that our carpets were that dirty.

• It certainly seems to lift the animal hair.  
• The vacuum is also bag-less, a feature that really sucks.  
• The vacuum came with a large number of heads due to a special offer at the time we purchased it.  The stair head is extremely handy.  
• One problem I frequently had with my old Kirby was that fibers would wrap around the brush bar.  So far the brush bar on the Dyson DC 23 hasn't suffered from the same problem as the my old Kirby.  
• The vacuum has a 5 year warranty, take that worth a grain of salt though.

Overall, despite the large number of complaints, I actually like the vacuum.  Surprised?.  The only major complaint is the price.  The poorly designed handle is only really a complaint for perhaps 5% of the vacuuming that a person does in the lifetime of the vacuum.