Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First off, let me say that I have owned Mighty Mites for over 15 years. I've loved them. My first one lasted for 12 years and was a workhorse. My second lasted only 3 years but that was because my child broke a wheel off of it (long story). So when I had to find a replacement, I immediately just looked for another Mighty Mite. Didn't even shop around. And then I discovered that they had changed some things since my last model and I have to say I'm sorely disappointed it. [Edited to add - be sure to read through the bottom - it's only 5 months later and it has broken to the point that it is going out to the trash) The new design of the floor attachment only works on perfectly flat floors (hardwood, linoleum, no-nap rugs) and only if you use it with the bristles retracted. One reason I loved my past Mighty Mites was that a) I could use it in all my rooms, including the one room with a low-nap carpeting and another room with a slightly shaggy rug, and b) I could extend the bristles on the bottom of the floor attachment and those would catch all the long hairs my daughters shed! What I discovered is that if you try to use it with the bristles extended on something with a low-nap, the floor attachment becomes angled in such a way that pushing it forward becomes 3x as hard as before, AND it looses almost all suction when you start to pull it back. The attachment actually bounces up off the ground as you pull it back! There is no way to have a smooth back-and-forth rhythm... it's PUSH HARD, and then pull back until ACK! it jumped over the spot it needed to vacuum so do that part again. I had not yet thrown away my old Might Mite and so I tried the old floor attachment hooked up to this canister. Everything worked perfectly. So I can say that this canister has good suction power... I called Eureka customer support to see if I had just gotten a defective model, and while he was very sympathetic to my problems, he made it clear that this was just how the floor attachments are designed now. He had me try it on the carpeting without the bristles extended, and it solved the problem of the attachment being hard to push... because now it was lightly rolling along with the feel of no suction in BOTH directions. :( He said that they made the new attachments lighter and that was probably why I was having these problems and that he had heard this from other customers as well. UGH. I will share a few of the other design changes as well: On the old Mighty Mite, you included two long hard plastic tubes to create the 'wand' that allowed you to stand and vacuum. I liked that if I needed to vacuum something nearer, I could pop off one (or both) of the tubes to use it for things like stairs or cobwebs in the basement ceiling, etc. The new Mighty Mite use a single metal, telescoping wand. This has the advantage that you can adjust it in smaller increments... so if you are slightly taller or shorter than the average person, you can make it the right height for you to do the floors. And you can adjust it down to half-length so it (in essense) can work on the same jobs where you'd use just one tube from the old model. One down side, though, is that it is a lot heavier. If you often used the old wand for overhead work, you're going to find your arms getting a lot more tired with this model. Finally, they changed the on-off switch. It used to be mechanical -- there was a tactile sensation and a 'click' that went with turning it on. The new switch LOOKS the same but doesn't work the same. You start to press it and the machine is suddenly on. But if you haven't pressed it long enough, then the machine might turn off when you take your finger (or foot) away. So then you do it again. It may be that we'll get used to it, but I asked each member of the family to try the new vacuum (without telling them my thoughts) and everyone disliked the new switch. This model still has good suction and is lightweight/maneuverable. As several reviewers have noted, the hose is lightweight and can kink easily but my second Mighty Mite was like that so I was used to that. My plan is to use my old floor attachment with the new vacuum... and when this one dies someday, I guess I'll be shopping around and trying out a few different models. [Added Jan 27, 2016... wow, 5 months later and I'm already having to buy a new vacuum. The cheap hose started to kink more and more frequently, until it was literally kinking right by the handle every single time I pulled back on it. This became SO aggravating that I pressed down hard on the power switch (the same one no one in my family liked) and apparently broke it. BUYER BEWARE -- the reviews from years past where this was a GOOD product no longer apply since Eureka has changed so many of the parts to cheaper pieces of junk!]