****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The product seems to be built very well using some durable material. I can vouch for it because as was setting up the dock, I dropped the main unit on a tile floor. I thought that was the end of its life, even before it could see the light of the day. But, it survived without a single crack or a scratch.The ergonomics also feels great. After vacuuming it for 30 minutes or so, my arms did not feel tired. When I asked my 9-year-old son (who used it for a while) what he likes most about this vacuum, his first response was, “I like how light it is.”Despite its size and weight, I was quite impressed with the suction power of this thing. It has three modes, each with different levels of suction power. The first time I used it, I was trying to vacuum a rug using its floor brush attachment. At first, it was difficult to slide the floor brush back and forth. I thought it was a problem with the floor brush. But soon realized that I was operating in it the high suction mode and the suction was making it difficult for me to slide the floor brush back and forth. Once I changed to a lower setting, the movement because much easier.The lowest setting seems to be good enough to lift dirt and debris from my carpeted room. However, it wasn’t able to lift all the dirt. Immediately after vacuuming my room once, I vacuumed it again and it collected quite a bit of dust, those it could not collect during the first run. Only after the third run was the debris bin didn’t have anything.Of course, you could vacuum using the high setting. However, besides the harder work you have to do to move the vacuum back and forth (which, by the way, was not as difficult on the carpet as it was on the rug), the battery does not last as long. In the low setting, the estimated life of the battery after a full charge was 45 min. In the high setting, it was 10 minutes (and 18 minutes for the medium). 10 minutes may not be enough for you to complete your vacuuming chore but if your rooms don’t collect a lot of dust, a lower setting may suffice.Talking about the estimated life of the batter, which gets displayed on the back of the unit, I found the estimate to be fairly accurate and useful. The information can come handly in deciding what setting to use and how thorough a cleaning job you want to do. And once the battery runs out, it is very easy to charge. Just plop the whole thing on its docking station.The docking station is very convenient. It can be mounted on the wall high enough to dock the vacuum without having to remove its attachments. It can also be attached to the charger station stand the vendor provides (mine didn’t come with one). When docked, the battery gets charged using its standard charger. While in the standard changer, a LED indicator tells you if the battery is charging or is fully charged. I have not tested the time it takes to fully charge the battery using the standard charger. However, if 10 minutes in the high mode is not long enough for you to finish your vacuuming chore and you need to charge the battery quickly, the dock also gives you the convenience of a rapid charger to do so.The rapid charger is located on the side of the dock. In order to use it, you have to take the battery out of the main unit and insert it into the rapid charging port, which is located on the side of the dock (I can’t figure out why the manufacturer could not make the standard changer the rapid one). The good thing about the rapid charger (besides being rapid) is that it tells you the charging time left (in minutes). Indicators also tell you when the battery gets too warm or is faulty. While charging the battery using the rapid charger, the vacuum can remain in the dock. I assume that if you have a spare battery, one can remain attached to the unit and get charged using the standard changer while the other gets charged using the rapid charger.The docking station also has USB ports for you to charge your other devices such as smartphones or tablets. I don’t see myself using it. What I find more useful for me is the USB port the battery has for powering external devices. I can see myself bringing the battery with me to my camping trip to charge my iPhone and lanterns.The docking station also has a rack for storing two accessories. My unit came with four accessories (besides the extender and the floor brush). I have to figure out another method for storing the other two accessories. It does come with racks for storing the accessories on the extender. But I don’t see myself going around the house vacuuming with contraptions attached to the extender (I have done so with other vacuum cleaners and is not convenient). Instead of giving us two racks for mounting on the want, I wish the vendor had provided us with a simple rack that can be mounted on the wall.All the accessories are very useful. I only wish they had made the extender telescopic so that it could be …. extended further! The thing I really like about the accessories is the mechanism used for attaching them. They are very easy to attach, and more importantly, detach. The ease of this mechanism alone tells me that it is a well-thought-out product. Only the pet peeve I have is, I wish the floor brush could be detached using my foot. Currently, each time I want to detach it, I have to raise the whole thing and use my other hand to detach the floor brush.The reason this would have helped is that the floor brush, though very good at collecting dust and hair, is not good at picking even small pieces of paper and plastic. It also does not appear to do a good job at the floor edges. So, as you are vacuuming, as you get to the edges or find small pieces, it would be more convenient if you could quickly detach the floor unit from the extender, use the extender to pick up the pieces or vacuum the edges and attach the floor unit back on. With the current design, the process is a bit cumbersome.As we are on the topic of collecting small debris, you should be aware that it is a small vacuum and does not seem to have been designed to swallow the same size pieces that your standard vacuum can. The common problem appears to be with small pieces of paper (eg. 1 square inch). They are likely to get stuck inside the floor brush. And if they make it through, they are likely to get stuck as they enter the collection bin. Thankfully, the main unit comes with indicators to tell you if debris is collected in the floor brush. And they both are easy to clean.The rest of the unit can also be cleaned rather easily. Emptying the collection bin is rather easy and takes just a few simple steps. However, I have had to use my finger to pull debris out from the canister (hairs get wrapped around the filter and keep debris from falling out on their own). Cleaning the filter seems to take just a few more simple steps.All in all, I have been pretty happy with the vacuum. Of course, no product is ever. As a product overcomes one inconvenience of life, what used to be a minor inconvenience gets amplified or a new one gets introduced and we want the product to overcome it. Without a doubt, this product has some of those too. But thankfully, it removes a lot of inconveniences and adds or amplifies just a few new ones. So, without a doubt, it is one of the best vacuum cleaners I have owned.
