Sucking Good - That's Dyson (Dyson DC01)

Member Name: Karael

Product:	Dyson DC01
Date:	08/02/01 (185 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good suck even in old age

Disadvantages: See text

Why did we buy a Dyson some four plus years ago? Well it was recommended by a friend and we liked the idea of not having to buy any more bags.

Has it lived up to expectation? Yes, absolutely - well almost. Our Dyson looks a bit the worse for wear now and there are a few minor irritations.

Lets look at the good points first.

(a) Good suck. Let's face it this is what vacuum cleaners are all about. It's not so much how it looks but how it performs. I'd give it say 9 out of 10. Much better than our previous cleaner (Electrolux) that didn't really pick up all the mess our dog dragged in, not to mention his floating hairs that seemed to get everywhere. Dyson sucked everything up no problem and no loss of power after using it for a while.

(b) No more bags. Great! Less expense. It's easy to empty, we just tip the dirt out into a used supermarket plastic bag when full.

(c) Transparent dirt holder so you know when to empty. How do you know when a normal vacuum cleaner bag is full? Probably when your realise it isn't picking up the dirt too well.

(d) Good tools. The hose reaches right up to the top of our stairs from the hall.

Now the not so good points:

(a) The handle of our Dyson snapped in half. I've fixed it with wire and yellow tape and it seems to be holding OK. This hasn't effected the performance.

(b) The cleaner sometimes falls over when I'm using the stretchy hose. My wife says it's me. I tell her....

(c) The tool for cleaning the stairs is loose and keeps falling out of the holder. Now my wife doesn't blame me for this! It happens to her - she tried cellotape, but it didn't help.

(d) The electric cable gets out of control. I vacuumed it once and nearly cut through to the wires. We have sticky tape round this as well now.

As from the above four points you'll gather that our Dyson looks ve
ry battered now but it's still sucking as well as ever and as I said before: What more do you want from a vacuum.

I like the technology of the Dyson and I admire the man behind it - James Dyson. He realised that normal vacuum cleaners lose their power because the bags soon clog up. Even changing a bag doesn't really help. He remembered how a similar thing happened to an air filter in the spray finishing room of a company where he worked. The answer to this problem was to fit a huge cyclone tower which removed the powder particles by centrifugal force. James wondered if this same principle would work with a vacuum cleaner. So with bits of cardboard he tried. 5000 prototypes later, over a five year period, and the design was mastered. It took a further five years to get it in production.

To sum up the Dyson DC01 isn't 100% perfect but I think, as far as I am concerned, it has been money well spent. The Dyson cleaners have been a massive success because, as James Dyson says, "If a product is genuinely better then it ought to sell better". You can't argue with that. It's sucking good!

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