Quite a day for “stuff” yesterday. Got some foam interlocking tile mats for what used to be our bedroom, and will soon be a home gym. Put about 2/3rds of it together last night, then finished the rest this morning, after waking up at 5-freakin’-am.
Also got a Dyson DC14 off of woot.com, which arrived yesterday. Man, it’s awesome. It totally sucks (har har), but more than that, it’s just really well designed. Ei-Nyung pointed out that all the parts you’re supposed to switch or grab to use the vac are yellow – the carpet/hard floor switch, the on/off switch, the carrying handle, while all the disassembly switches are white. Small detail, but really quite clever.
The thing’s really clever in other ways as well – the “wand” stores inside the flexi-hose, and the whole thing snaps together in a way that feels very unified – it doesn’t feel like an arbitrary weird bit, like our old Panasonic vacuum, whose flexi-hose just sort of sat there, slung over the top of the vacuum. The various bits and bobs click nicely into place, to empty the vacuum you just disconnect the cannister, walk over to your trash, and hit a button. I hated the fact that on vacs with bags, after you’ve taken out the bag you’ve got to wash the vacuum, ’cause all the fine dust “poofed” out of the bag and got everywhere, then once you put the new bag in, you’ve gotta vacuum *again* because again, there’s dust everywhere.
I think the reason people become Dyson evangelists in the same way that people become Apple evangelists is that this thing works the way I *want* a vacuum to work. Consumer Reports didn’t think it was worth the price, and that you could get your house equally clean for ~1/2 the price, but I’ve never seen a vacuum that was as well designed as the Dyson, and where the user experience was as refined.
That, and it got so much more fine dirt out of the places we regularly vacuum than our old vacuum that it was *shocking*. The dog hair, I expected. The fine dust not so much.
Also picked up Prince of Persia Classic on Live Arcade. As many gaming sites have already said, this is what a classic remake should be. It looks great, the new animations make it feel really contemporary, and the gameplay is still relevant and fun. If I had to choose between this an Pac Man CE, though, personally, I’d go with Pac Man.
You know what you call a guy that buys an overpriced vacuum?
Wait for it.
A sucker.
Thank you! Good night! Be sure to tip your waitresses!
I have the Eureka Boss Smart Vac Ultra. CR Best Buy.
I know 4 people that read this blog that have Dysons, so I’m going to piss you all off! 😉
Contrary to your comments on design, CR said:
“A very good bagless vac but has confusing controls. Easier to use than the comparable Dyson DC07 when using wand with attachments. Hose longer than most. Noisy. Hard to push and pull. No headlamp.”
I think the Dyson is a design statement, but I don’t think that statement is, “look how easy I am to use.”
“this thing works the way I *want* a vacuum to work.”
It’s noisier, doesn’t “suck” as well and is harder to push around as cheaper vacuums.
Plus, it doesn’t have a headlamp, which I think is crazy. Not only does the headlamp allow you to see under the couch, for example, but it causes everything on the ground to cast shadows so it’s easier to see things.
I think of Dysons like 1st gen iPods: expensive, not as good from a functional point of view, but have a “coolness” factor not present in other brands.
I don’t put much of a premium on refinement in vacuum cleaner design, I admit. It’s not like piloting a 747. You take it out of the closet, turn it on and push it around. Then you turn it off and put it back in the closet. Maybe you adjust the height of the thing based on the height of the rug while you’re at it (another feature the Dyson lacks).
A_B
Terri and I have long been in the market for a new vacuum because our current one is awful. I don’t know anything about Dyson, but after a few minutes on their website I can tell you one thing that Apple has over them is a simple product line.
If you go to buy a Mac, it’s pretty easy to figure out whether you want a MacBook, MacBook Pro, mini, iMac, or Mac Pro. From there it’s really just a matter if deciding how much Ram or disk you want.
Dyson, on the other hand, has 4 lines of upright vacuum with up to 9 varients. What the heck is the difference between “full kit”, “full access”, “total clean”, “all floors”, and “complete”? If I go with the full kit will I not get my floors totally clean? If I go with total clean, might I not be able to have complete access?
Guess who else has a CR account! 😀 Me, that’s who. I read all the stuff, but we went for it anyway due to the extreme sale.
I’ll admit I was a little worried. After all, it’s a lot of money, even after the sale, and I don’t like to spend money.
I might change my mind after months of use, but frankly, the things that CR worried about are not at all a factor for Seppo and me. I can’t judge whether they are a problem for the vast majority of people, so perhaps I can’t make a universal recommendation, but I can make a judgment on how easy it feels to use for me.
It’s light. The wheels roll very well and I can drag it from room to room or carry it up and down the stairs with little issue — the weight is balanced such that I can lift it with my wimpy arms with one hand, and not have to use two hands to keep the body from smacking me as I have in the past.
It doesn’t seem noisy to me, but then again, our roomba is pretty loud, as was our old vacuum, so I am not sure how it compares to other late model vacuums.
The hose is indeed longer than most, at least those I’m used to. I don’t know why that’s bad though, since it packs itself perfectly when not in use, and is awesomely long for when having to do stairs without dragging the body around.
It definitely lacks a headlamp. I wonder if I’d miss it if I were used to it. Probably! So this could be a case of a commonly accepted good feature missing from the product. Since I’m not used to it, I don’t know any better.
I’m confused about it not sucking as well. Its suction is terrifying and awe-inspiring. If there is better out there, whoa. Incredible. I mean, I am so impressed with it, that I am having a hard time imagining what would suck better.
In fact, I am so impressed with it that I briefly thought about taking it to friends’ houses (those who vacuum all the time) to do a demo for them. Heh.
In conclusion, I can imagine that it’s not great for other people who might be used to a much much quieter vacuum or who is used to a headlamp, but for Seppo and me, it’s fantastic and I could not be happier with it and amazed by the amount of dirt it sucks up.
I totally agree with rawhide’s assessment of the crazy lines and descriptions that made no sense whatsoever to me. I read over the charts a good dozen times to figure out the difference. Basically, don’t bother getting the “animal” no matter if you have pets. It’s more expensive but the added accessories aren’t the crucial ones for dealing with pets, as far as I can tell. Strange.
However, I disagree with the statement that it’s easy to figure out which Apple computer product to get. When Seppo was pondering his MacBook purchase, I also spent an inordinate amount of time looking around the Apple site, trying to figure out which one I’d get for myself in theory, and I never really did figure it out. Seppo also had to point out the confusingly named that the Core Duo and Core II Duos are different. My eyes simply merged the II and Duo into one “two” concept several times when I read it, much like the mental merging of words in the name of the book, “There Are Two Errors in the the Title of This Book”.
I’m going to have to agree with Seppo and eingy here. I got the DC07, which is a little heavier, but is still extremely simple to use. The vacuum does produce a bit of a high pitched whine that can be really annoying when in a narrow hallway, but in open rooms, it’s only slightly louder than my previous two vacuums.
The controls are, IMO, as Seppo said, very straight forward. I figured out how to use everything (except the wand) without reading the manual. I figured out how to disassemble the entire thing, remove the filter, remove the cannister and empty it, etc just by looking for the colored bits. The handle on mine actually has a suction thing at the top of the hand, so I just assumed you used that end, but you’re supposed to remove the handle and place it backwards on the tube. That was the only confusing part (and the confusion lasted all of 10 seconds).
My previous vacuum was a bagless Eureka, which I had used for about 5 years. It was a great vacuum that had a slightly more powerful engine than the Dyson (18 amps vs 12 amps), but the Dyson appears to pick up more fine dust (can’t do side by side comparisons because the Eureka broke).
As for the other complaints: I’ve *never* adjusted the height of my vacuum. When you’ve got multiple cats, you need that brush to dig as deeply as it goes, so the lack of adjustable height (or rather, the fact that it only has two heights – carpet and hardwood floor) is no problem for me.
The power cord is longer than every other vacuum I’ve seen, which is fantastic, and the cannister is the largest I’ve ever used, which is also another big plus. The lack of a light is a little disappointing, but again, it’s one of those features that I never really valued anyway.
The one complaint that I do have is that yes, it is a bit hard to push around. It feels heavy when you push and pull it. But, I haven’t seen our carpet look this fluffy since the day we moved in.
Hmmm… Well, I would never defend the “core duo” vs. “core 2 duo” naming scheme, but that’s something Intel came up with. I’m not going to argue with you if you found Apple’s lineup difficult, and perhaps I’m not the best person to talk because I know the product line pretty well.
If not Apple, what’s an example of a product line that is easy to navigate? I think most consumer electronics companies have pretty byzantine lines. Or even when their products are differentiated, the websites are pretty useless at accentuating those.
i’m jealous of your vacuum superiority.