 This is exactly what I was hoping for!!! |
| Review Date: June 17, 2007 |
| Reviewer: M. Boening, Illinois |
First of all, I read every review that I could find before makeing my new vacuum choice. This is the answer to every vacuum design flaw that I've ever encountered.
1. My first requirement, this has an automatic cord rewinder. I will not spend more time winding it up than vacuuming.
2. There are no impossible to find bags to buy.
3. The dust cup empties from the bottom. No more flipping it over and banging on the cup only to wear half of the dust yourself when it flys back up at you.
4. The most used attachments are really attached. The wand on the front of the vacuum is really handy with the stretch hose stored inside that even and the crevice tool folds up into the vacuum. No more storing all your attachments. Attachments have always fallen off every vacuum I've ever used with little help making the on-board storage a joke.
5. The handle can lower all the way to the ground making it possible to clean under chairs and such. That feature also seems to be hard to find these days.
6. The vacuum has a clip if you use the hose aggresivly so that the vacuum does not tip over. I broke an expensive dirt devil that had a habit of falling over when ever you would use the hose. The last fall was to it's death. It ended up causing the belt to eat itself.
7. To my next plus, this does not have any awful belts to have to replace either.
8. The filters are also lifetime and washable. Buying another one would be of pure convenience for really impatient people that can't wait 24 hours to vacuum again.
9. The appearance is one of the most appealing that I've seen yet. They come in such hip colors too. Now don't be fooled like I was, I really thought this vacuum was going to be blue like every picture that I've seen on many websites. Sometimes lighting makes things look different and sometimes people are just color blind and items are clearly not the color they are marked. This is called purple and silver and to my surprise it really is a great metallic purple. It's a slick looking vacuum and functional as well.
Other Peoples List of Cons:
It's actually not as heavy as everyone made it out to be. I was a bit scared when I read it was 18 pounds. I know many people gripe that this is such a heavy vacuum but for all you are getting it's so worth it, just think your arms will get a work out also.
And the pictures made me wonder if this was going to be obnoxiously huge like the dyson vacuums all seem to be, but it's not. It's just the right size. We don't have a big house and it's size is just perfect.
Alot of people also say that it lost suction after a short time. There is a button above the power button to turn off the brush rolls for bare floors or using attachments. I've accidentally hit that rather than the power button. Could this be the problem??? If you try to vacuum with it off, you clearly see the difference and it does seem like something is wrong. It's wasn't the vacuum, just the operator. I just think that some people didn't read their book.
Price Wise:
Amazon.com is the best price by far $146, shipping is also free (and I got it the next day, talk about speedy). Target and Best Buy had this on clearance for $250. The Vax site itself is selling this for $199. Other sites are selling this for up to $400. I even looked on ebay and with the shipping included the price was nowhere near what Amazon sells it for.
Overall this is the best vacuum I've ever owned! I hope I've helped someone out there making their decision. |
So far so good ...
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| Review Date: February 17, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Michelle L., Cincinnati, OH |
I can't believe my first review on Amazon, with all the stuff I buy, is for a vacuum cleaner. However, I attempted to research this vacuum before I purchased and couldn't find a thing. I blogged about it, and started getting all sorts of hits on that post. Apparently I wasn't the only one who couldn't find info. With that in mind, I'm pasting in my blog entry on my experiences with the X5, which I bought at Best Buy on Feb 11.
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2/11/06: Everyone I tell laughs when I tell them this, but I took my impossible IKEA area rug to Best Buy and vacuumed it with the floor samples. We tried the Dyson DC07 and the Vax X5. I don't know if there was too much of a difference. They both picked up stuff the other had missed. They also both picked up tons of stuff. I've never seen machines with so much suction.
We ended up with the Vax because it seemed to perform as well as the Dyson, but happens to be $100 cheaper.This is a $300 vacuum cleaner. I expect a lot out of it.
We get it home and I'm blown away by how well it's cleaning the carpet. However, I put it on our hardwood floors and nothing. It's not sucking up a thing.
I'm going to try it again today. In fact, I have 30 days in which I can try it before I have to take it back to Best Buy and get the Dyson. It was hard enough spending $300 on a vacuum; it'll be really difficult to drop $400 on the Dyson. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I did something wrong somewhere and that the Vax will work on the hardwood floors today.
Blog Update 2/12/05: Okay - I did the hardwood today, and then the carpets in my office and had no problem whatsoever!! Here's hoping the Vax is a keeper.
Did I mention it has a scented filter as well as the lifetime HEPA filter? When I vacuum, the whole house smells like cinnamon (or whatever scented filter I use). And it comes with 4 of the filters, which only need to be replaced quarterly. |
Generally happy with this purchase
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| Review Date: April 21, 2006 |
| Reviewer: J. Clark, Elk Grove, CA |
I've been a Hoover fan for years, but the last two vacuums seemed to fall apart quickly, so I decided to try something new. Overall this vacuum met my expectations. Suction is very good. Being able to empty the canister from the bottom is great. The retractible cord is a timesaving feature. The entire vacuum seems sturdy and ergonomically well made.
I have a few concerns however. The wand attachment isn't as user friendly as I'd hoped it would be. It fights you a little when you try to retract the hose from the unit, and the end attachment is an odd shape that doesn't work well for baseboards.
But here is my biggest "design flaw": most vacuums tilt all the way back so you can go under tables, etc. - and this one does too. But they typically have at least one or two lock points along the way back, so if you want to tip the vacuum up an inch in the front to go up and over a tall rug, you can. The Vax has no lock point... the handle just freely tips all the way back, making it impossible to lift up the front even a little bit. I have to literally yank the entire vacuum into the air before I can go from a low point to a high point in the floor. I can't believe the designers didn't think about this.
Finally, if you like a vacuum to have different floor heights, this one has only one. So if you want to run it over an area rug, there is no way to raise it up or otherwise reduce the suction.
I'll still give it four stars overall, because the suction and dirt cup design are great, and not having to wind the darn cord as you do on other vacuums is a time saver.
The other person who warned against using the scented filters was right on. Holy cow - we put the lemon filter in, and for an entire day we gagged artificial lemon scent. We were quick to take it out before the next vacuuming! |
Works great, but you have to maintain it!
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| Review Date: April 25, 2007 |
| Reviewer: R. B. Skaggs, Laramie, Wyoming |
| I bought my VAX X5 about 3 months ago. Having grown up in a Kirby world, I reached the point where I had three of them, all with broken vanes in the impeller so it was time to move on for me. I saw a slightly used VAX for sale and without much research bought it for $75. Marching out to the trash can the next day with 3 Kirby's was quite an experience even though I'm sure I could have Ebay'ed them for something...but this was symbolic. I was now armed with a dust-bunny hunting cannon ready for a cleaning renaissance. It worked "ok" at first, mostly I was so impressed with how quiet it was (ever heard a Kirby with a broken vane? A freight train was comparatively quiet!) But, I found it not real impressive with the wand and especially just having vacuum. I read the reviews here and realized perhaps I didn't have the Excaliber that would be the end all to my quest for a great vacuum. Then I read the one review about keeping the upper filter clean, so I figured I'll try a good filter cleaning (remember, it was a used vacuum anyway). I took out the upper filter, blew it out with a compressor and WOW! This was one hot vacuum! What a difference! But, in just a few more uses and it was time to clean the upper filter again. So, I would say if you keep up with the filter cleaning, it's great. Otherwise, you'll be complaining about no suction. I figure if it does not pick the carpet off the floor with the vacuum, it's time to clean it out. You heard me, "pick the carpet off the floor as it vacuums it" and I have a fairly heavy jute backed wall-to-wall carpet. That's how good it CAN suck, if it's working right. Now I know most people would not have access to a compressor, so I suggest to get an extra cartridge and when you remove one, put the other one in and then vacuum out the first one. I'm also remodeling my house so there is a lot of chunky construction "dust" which really clogs up the upper filter fast, so I put a round piece of common window screen in front of the upper filter so now, a lot of the chunky stuff will get caught in the screen while the vacuum is running, then fall into the main cavity after I shut it down. I find this has cut down the cleaning to 1/3 of the frequency as before, so I can honestly say this has been a great vacuum, with modifications, and fairly frequent cleaning of the upper filter, which only takes about 2 minutes about once every three weeks or so. I also took a 6" piece of washing machine exhaust (water) tube and fit it snugly into the end of the wand to give it a bit more concentrated suction area along with not wearing out the plastic head of the wand. This piece will also double as a splice for all the Kirby attachments I kept from the trashman because those outside diameters (as well as any Shop-Vac attachments)are the same as the diameter of the wand end piece so you need to splice them with a slightly smaller diameter piece and the rubber hose fits perfectly and snugly in both wand and attachments. So far as the attachments, the flexible hose is AWESOME! The scented filters should come in micro-beer, burritos or popcorn scent for us guys, and the powered brush is... well, lost because I found it more of an interesting gizmo than a useful tool. It's probably dry-walled behind my bathroom wall or something... left for prosperity to be found by the next guy crazy enough to take on a complete remodel of most everything in the house. Hopefully, he/she will have a vacuum that will be more maintenance free. |
Not a Dyson, but better than other commercial vacuums
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| Review Date: February 14, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Ben, Chicago Suburbs |
First off, if you are considering the Dyson, get the Dyson. Vax may have more inital power, but it gets clogged up just like any other bagless vacuum and needs to be cleaned pretty often. Another downside to Vax is the hose assembly, it does fine for picking up dirt on hard floors but not so well on carpeted/fabric areas and the hose extentions are a bit awkward to hold and use in general. Also, the upgrade tools have been sitting in my closet for about a year now. If you don't mind the color, get the X3; same vacuum, just without the upgrade tools.
Now for the good. So long as you clean out the filter assembly (takes all of 3 mins) the Vax does a great job on carpets. Better than our previous Hoover Windtunnel, which was also ~300 and the Vax easier to clean the filter assembly then the hoover. We have a long haired cat, a dog that sheds alot, and children so we get ALOT of dirt and hair in our house.
Cleaning the filter system is easy, all you need is a hard brush (hard like the bristles on a toilet brush) and a sink. Brush the top of the screen filter to removed the dirt from screen (some brushes work better than others, if it doesn work well, try a different brush) and then rinse out the sponge filter in the sink (I've never used soap). Squeeze out all the water you can from the sponge filter by hand, then use a towel to get it a little more dry (just make sure that the sponge filter is moist, not wet). I've been doing this for a year and never had any problems. Put it all back together and you're at 100% power again. Being able to clean the filter system easily it what I like most about the Vax.
Being able to turn off the floor brush to do hardwood floors is also a bonus, not to mention there are no belts to replace. The brushes are directly linked to the second motor and the motor has burnout protection incase something gets stuck in the brushes. Just remove the obect and hit the reset button to get the brushes to spin again.
The hose assembly has its upsides. Once you get used to how to use the hose, its pretty handy in most cases. Its great for the quick little corner here and there. But as most people have commented, it doesnt do so well on carpet and fabrics. The hose assembly is also pretty simple. There is one path from the floor to the dirt cannister. This was a selling point for me since our past hoover constantly got the internal hose system clogged up, requiring me to disassemble the hoover in order to clean it out.
Compared to other vacuumes, it is decently lightweight. Since the hose tools kinda suck, I just pick up the Vax and vacuum the stairs with the floor brush. My wife leaves that chore to me.
In summary, the Vax excels at doing what a vacuum is supposed to do, which is removing dirt and pet hair from carpets. Its better than most other (non-Dyson) bagless vacuums. If you can afford a dyson, get a dyson. Otherwise the Vax is a good choice so long as you have done your homework and know what to expect. I expect the Vax to last us at least 5 years or more of vigorous use. Not bad for the price considering our hoover died after 2.5 years, cost about the same, but was a pain to clean and maintain. |
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