I saw this at Best Buy, and figured I'd give it a shot. As an owner of three huskies, we're always looking for something that will make all of the fur a bit more manageable, and easier to suck up.
One thing I liked about this at the store was that it was corded. From experience, anything battery operated or rechargeable usually doesn't have a lot of power. Additionally, nobody remembers to recharge the batteries, or put the thing back in the charger, let alone finding an available outlet for the myriad of various and sundry chargeable, battery operated things in the house.
Got it home and decided to try it out on the stairs. Although we have a Dyson (and love it) sometimes its a bit of a pain to drag it down the stairs to the landing and use it on the stairs. I also thought it would be handy to use to vacuum out the trucks.
So, after about a week of not vacuuming, I gave it a go.
The unit is ready right out of the box, no assembly required. Very short instruction book on how to use it (nice), plugged it in and turned it on. Its pretty powerful, and the rubberized tip does seem to get into the carpet well, and suck up the fur.
It filled up halfway down the stairs (5 of them) and stopped sucking. Getting the dirt container off was a bit difficult, you have to put it on a flat surface and remove it, the filter keeps the dirt and hair from spewing out all over.
Here is a picture of the hair it sucked up:
A pretty good size clump of hair and dirt, but just to double check, I got out the Dyson to see what it would get out:
So, although it seems to pick up a lot, it actually leaves a lot left behind.
Overall, I probably wouldn't use it in the house on a regular basis, but as I mentioned before, it'll probably make a halfway decent car vacuum.
I'd give it 3 claws.
