Dyson DC25

We sprang for a Dyson DC25 ($400) to replace our old Eureka 5843AZ Litespeed ($100 or so in 2003, now discontinued). The old Eureka was fine for the two rugs in our one-bedroom apartment, but it wasn’t up to the task of keeping those two rugs and two carpeted bedrooms clean enough for an active nearly-one-year-old crawler.

We purchased from Max-Vacuum because their prices were competitive with the big “A”, and because they have very easy-to-read buying guides and comparison charts to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the various models.

Assembly was easy. It was no surprise (unfortunately) that the vacuum dust canister was nearly full after running it through the apartment, despite having just vacuumed a week ago.

The good:

• The vacuum is pretty quiet, as far as vacuum cleaners go.
• The cleaning head (with the brushbar turned “on”) is somehow able to go over our rug tassels without sucking them into the brushbar and stopping the vacuum. Nifty!
• Light weight. Carrying the thing around between rooms is an easy one-handed job.
• The “ball” really is more maneuverable (similar to using a swivel mop or a swivel-head “Swiffer”), although the marketing-speak for “turn at the flick of a wrist” would be an exaggeration.

The bad:

• There doesn’t seem to be a hook on the handle for holding the power cord up off the floor when the vacuum is in use; left on its own, the power cord just drags on the floor. For $400, there ought to be some kind of hook to hold the power cord up. Even the $100 Eureka has a hook for the power cord. I must be missing something, because this really is a design failure.
• The dust canister is small. The DC25 is smaller and lighter than the other Dyson models, but it was kind of surprising that it was already half-full after cleaning our small 2BR apartment (or maybe the apartment was just really dirty).
• The dust canister empties through the bottom. This means that after emptying, there will inevitably be little clumps of stuff clinging to the bottom of the canister, because they are made of nasty grimy dust, or because of static electricity. If the canister emptied from the top, these clumps would just fall back into the canister. Instead, these clumps just fall back onto the floor.

Only time will tell if this purchase is worth it. We lived with the $100 cheapie for 6.5 years, so Dyson will have to last us 26 years.