Berty The Bosch (Bosch BX 11600)

Member Name: Recon

Product:	Bosch BX 11600
Date:	22/02/08 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cleans well, Glides across floor, Looks good

Disadvantages: Mine was broken 1st time, Hard to change filters, Hard to empty dirt

I shall be reviewing Berty the Bosch, as that is his name lol.

My place is mostly composed of wooden floors instead of carpet. I have a few rugs and mats, but these are shaken and lifted away when I clean the floors anyway. Therefore, I thought it would be good to buy a little vacuum cleaner on wheels rather than sweeping up all the time. I decided to buy a small one as it was a bit cheaper, and looked very compact and good. Made by Bosch, I was expecting something more than it is, however it isn't a bad vacuum cleaner.

Well, it looks great. It is very compact and has a grey, black and orange colour scheme - three colours that do go very well together. It looks very modern due to its smooth shape, which is also very compact. The materials it is made of make it look modern too, as parts are bright orange and translucent, whereas others are jet black opaque parts, giving it a lovely contrast and cool modern look!

The main body has bits and bobs that clip off to empty filters and such around the vacuum cleaner. Coming off the top of the machine is a pipe. This pipe is quite flexible and has a ribbed shape, so it can extend quite a lot and then compact a lot when not being used. This pipe leads onto a hard one that isn't flexible, so stays in a strong shape. This is the bit you hold and move around when cleaning, as it has the attachment on the bottom, which slides along the floor very well. There is an on/off button on top that is easily located after the first time you spot it. Pressing it down will switch it on/off, and it can be turned to adjust the power of suction.

As for my experience with this vacuum, it wasn't a good one whatsoever. Ours actually broke, so we took it back to the shop and had to get it replaced. This took a few weeks, and they blamed us for not emptying the filters however it was fixed/replaced for free! The thing is, we emptied the filter all the time and emptied the dirt from it too!

Ours actually made an absolutely horrific noise when we switched it on to begin. It was an extremely high pitch noise, sounding as if it was extremely over heated or over powered and couldn't cope and was going to explode! It was a horrible noise, and quite frightening as it was like 50,000W was going into a 1600W vacuum cleaner! The new one is definitely sounding how it should. It has a smoother and more normal-pitched noise, and isn't ear-splitting!

The vacuum cleaner is very easy to use. You plug it into the socket after un-ravelling it enough to get enough cable. To switch it on, you press down that button I mentioned earlier, which is on top of the machine. You can adjust the suction power by turning this too. Once on, you simply slide it around the room holding the long stick and it will pick up all the dirt you run over! It glides around wooden floors like a dream, but there is one problem that is annoying. This is that loads of dust gets stuck to the bristles towards the front of the suction part that glides along the floor. This prevents more dirt from being picked up, so every now and then you have to take off the dust with your hands and then let go above the suction part so it gets sucked right in.

The other disadvantage is actually emptying the machine. You need to lift out a big black part of it, after unclipping it and lifting bits up and getting it out. Once you have it, you unclip the lid, but there is a gap at the other end where the dirt simply runs out anyway! If it is full, you have to be very careful and it will go everywhere anyway... Finally, cleaning the filters is even more of a pain! One is on the outside and you un-clip the cover with holes and then take out the filter paper to get any dust off it. The other one is deep inside the machine even further than the bin itself where the dirt ends up! You need to open this little white box and take out the filters, but it is tricky to do so because it's a tiny gap and the filters only just fit in! It's very hard to get them out and back in, and very annoying to do, however you mustn't let dust build up.

For £119.99, this vacuum cleaner wasn't a bad purchase after I actually had it fully working. I am going to give it three stars though, because there shouldn't be such difficulty when emptying the dirt and cleaning the filters. Also, the fact that it broke gave me bad impressions from the start as well as deafening my ears with this remarkably high-pitch noise! I think it's easy to use as it is on wheels and has good features. The cord for the power can be pulled back slightly, then it will get coiled into the machine itself when you let go, so you don't have to worry about stuffing it in with trouble. However, it does work very well and picks up dirt easily. However, every bonus seems to have a flaw, because you have to constantly manually remove dust from the bristles on the bottom and make sure they get sucked up as they always get stuck to the machine! Overall, a good vacuum cleaner for wooden and hard floors, but a pain to use!

Thanks for reading,

- Recon -

Summary: A good cleaner for hard floors and wooden ones, but a pain to use!

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