About two months ago I started seeing advertisements for a new vacuum made by the company Dyson. I decided to check out their web site because my old Hoover™ was just about to give up the ghost after about three years of fighting with cat hair. The Dyson Web Site blew me away. It was one of the best designed commercial product web sites (after all this is a vacuum) that I've seen in quiet a while.
The only thing that stopped me from rushing out and buying one was the steep entry price ($399). That's a brand new X-Box and at least two games (my equation of value) and enough to give me a little pause.
I decide on Tuesday to make the plunge and after a visit to Sears rushed home to see if I had just become the latest vacuum cleaner sucker born.
The Box
One of the things that I love about people who design well is they seem to think of all of the little things. With all of the other vacuums that I've every brought home I struggled to get them in the door (big awkward box). The Dyson box had a handle on it, this isn't a big thing but it was a sign of things to come regarding how much attention they had paid to detail.
As opposed to ripping open the box I was able to uncrate the vacuum and put it together quickly without even needing as much as a screw driver. The design is sleek and good looking, but would it perform?
Performance
I have two areas of my apartment which are traditionally problems for my former vacuums: the living room and the den/cat box. The living room is an issue because I have my cat playhouse there and they constantly rip it to shreds leaving large pieces of blue carpet all over the floor. The Den, where the cat box is located, is problematic because whatever you do there always appear to be
tiny pieces of cat foot tracked litter all over the place.
So...these areas were the challenge? How did the Dyson perform?
Absolutely friggin incredible! The vacuum makes very little noise and has incredible suction that comes from the patented root cyclone technology. In the case of the living room it conquered the loose carpet fragments with usually a single pass and left the floor looking like a professional had come in and
performed the smoothing magic (post carpet look) .
The Den was the challenge I was the most interested in because it presented the larger challenge and the Dyson sucked itself into my heart.
When finished I couldn't find any particles of litter on the floor. In the past I would have to vacuum this area with my upright Hoover and then get down on my hands and knees with a shop vacuum to finish.
Technology
The Dyson's key technology for the bagless vacuum is the root cyclone technology. The eight individual cyclones spin and using centrifugal force create a constant suction power. A short movie of the inside the canister tornado this creates can be seen here. This technology allows the Dyson to keep a constant suction power of 270 air watts compared with a traditional bag vacuum which starts at about 200 aw and drops as the bag gets full.
I was surprised how quickly the Dyson canister filled (had to empty it twice to complete the apartment). However, each time it was filled to the brim with hair, dust, etc that I'm a lot happier to be putting into the trash then leaving in the embedded front room.
You'll remember how I said they thought about a lot of things in their design, here are two more: First, to dump the canister you simply push a button on top and out falls all of the junk/dust bunnies. While this doesn't seem like much at first I can't tell you how many times I've spilled trying to empty a traditional bagless vacuum. Second, the handle of the Dyson expands and becomes the wand which is used with the attachments. It took me a few moments to figure this out but once I did I was able to easily get into corners, behind furniture with a good deal of vacuum power.
Bottom Line
The vacuum is just incredible, from design to performance I feel like I have found the Lamborghini of vacuum cleaners. It's good enough I may put on racing stripes and challenge others to races in the hall.
Zen
Comments