Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I want to give this 4.5 stars but I cant. Now, the reasons are very minor but I gave 5 stars instead of 4 for that reason. The pistol grip is not comfortable. I have big hands and it does do some minor rubbing and with the hard plastic, its just not that comfortable. The dust bin, when dealing with animal hair does scrape off most of the hair, In fact it will scrape all the hair off the center when emptying but hair can still get stuck and you have to reach in and pull it out. Again, very minor issue. More annoying then anything is the dock. It does not hold all the attachments so you will have to store some. I dont understand how they have been through many revisions and still dont modify the dock to hold all the accessories. Ok, now to real dirty world usage. All cleaning was using standard, I never used max. I have a neato that runs in my living room every day, usually twice a day. I have 1 sheltie mix, I have another sheltie/pomeranian mix and 2 cats so you can imagine I have a lot of hair im dealing with. The 2 dogs are still shedding and can dump a ton of hair on my living room rug in just a matter of a few hours and thats with constantly brushing them. My first test was going over the area rug that had been cleaned the evening before by my neato. Its a 10x12 area rug. I didnt even notice till I finished that the entire dirt bin was almost completely full. I went over the area rug 2 more times during the day and each time it still pulled hair up and was at max line both times. Mind you this area rug is short, its not a plush rug at all. Now, I get this from my neato to. when my dogs are shedding, it can take 4 times a day vacuuming to get it where you get almost no hair left. I purposely let my computer room go unvacuumed for 3 weeks. I wanted to give this a torture test that my hundred dollar upright dirtdevil vacuum would struggle with. Its a small room, maybe 8x6 area to be cleaned. Let me say this right now. It put my dirt devil to shame on the very first pass. My dirt devil which is only a little over a year old and very well maintained, can take 3-5 passes to clean up that hair on carpet thats been here since probably the 50s. I had to empty the bin 4 times while cleaning this room and it was top to bottom full of dog hair. Now, cleaning time for this room was probably only around 3-4 minutes but you also have to figure in the times I had to keep emptying it. With that said, I will say that the carpet turned out much nicer than when using the dirt devil and I thought the dirt devil did a good job, until now. Now here is the amazing part, My neato will have to have its brushes cleaned about every 2-3 days as they will be full. All that carpet cleaning with all that hair and when I was done, I had to pull like 4 strands that had wrapped around the brush. That was very exciting to see how clean it stayed, Funny thing is, I didnt so much buy this for the carpet cleaning, I actually bought this for the cat litter that keeps getting slung out by our cats onto the hardwood floor. My vacuum was useless on cat litter as it would just sling it everywhere. I have limited mobility due to a stroke several years ago so sweeping with a broom is a very difficult chore for me. The fluffy head power unit is an absolute godsend. It picked that litter up like it was nothing but some dust. All those videos I watched of the V6 and V8 are so true, The fluffy head works awesome. There is some downsides to it though. I had a couple stringy pieces of carpet that was on the floor and they didnt make it into the bin, they just wrapped around the fluffy roller. Not a huge deal but it did seem to do it consistently. My biggest worries with paying over $500 for a tick vacuum was that A) I must be stupid and B) 25 minutes of runtime with a powerhead on it? I must really be stupid! To my surprise, the combo of the suction and the powerhead makes vacuuming really quick. When I would do my living room area rug with my dirtdevil, I would go slowly and it could easily take me 10 minutes to go over it. With the V8. it takes about 3-4 minutes. It takes around the same to clean the computer room. It takes about 2 minutes to clean around the litter boxes and hallways, it takes about 2 minutes to do my kitchen. About 2 minutes for the bedroom and 2 minutes for the den. That leaves plenty of power left, around 13 more minutes, if I need to do a spot clean here and there after the dogs, It could easily take me 15 minutes to just do the 2 rooms with the big vac. You dont realize how much time you spend fighting the cord and trying to get it out of your way. No cord equals 100% cleaning time (Except emptying the bin) and that can really shorten the amount of time you need to clean. Overall, im very pleased with how it performs on both carpet and hard floors. It is very light and easy to maneuver for me and it is much easier to maintain then my upright. I dont have a clue on how durability is going to be, thats going to take time to find out. Let me also say this. I hate vacuuming, its why I bought a robot to begin with lol, but using the V8, it did not feel like a chore at all. No dragging and re positioning that cord every few passes, no weight at all, The V8 is only around 5lbs and its very maneuverable and easily carried. As for loudness, oh my goodness, it is quiet! compared to any of my vacuums, it is by far the quietest of them all. My dogs didnt even bark like they do when starting the upright. I still think im nuts for spending this much money on a vacuum cleaner but if this can last me for several years, it will be well worth the investment. Do I think this can replace a full upright vacuum? Yes I do and here is why. You will use this more often. Instead of waiting a week to drag out the big vacuum, you will grab this, run it for a couple minutes here and there and you will be done. You will end up doing this more often because its so convenient. I would put the V8 up there with the dishwasher. A must have for everyone who hates doing that exact chore. It just makes your life easier.