NOW CLOSED: Dyson Digital Slim DC44 Tester feedback review thread – Non testers – you could win a Dyson

[AnnMumsnet]

This thread is for the testers currently putting the Dyson Digital Slim DC44 through its paces this Christmas.

Once you've received the Dyson and have had a play please let us know your first impressions.

Then let us know - across the next couple of weeks - how you're getting on with the challenges (do also let us know if you've invented or discovered any other ways the Dyson helped out!).

Here's what Dyson say about their challenges:

The balance challenge - "We know that often busy parents need to multi task. So can you still vacuum with the Dyson digital slim whilst the other hand is doing something else - carrying the baby, the dog, the phone, cooking, putting things away (you name it)".

The versatility challenge - "how useful are the different attachments in cleaning those hard to reach places?"

The cobweb challenge - "can you reach those high up cobwebs that have been sat there lurking for a while?"

The family mess challenge - "pets, children, mud, crisps, crumbs? what family mess can the Dyson digital slim pick up?"

The 20 minute dash challenge - Guests turning up announced? How much of the house can you clean in 20 minutes with the Dyson digital slim?

You will need to add feedback at least twice - once everyone has added their feedback on the challenges we'll add some questions to find out your overall views.

If you're not a tester, we've persuaded Dyson to give one lucky MNer the Dyson machine of their choice - all you need to do is, on this thread, share your cleaning tips and/or the hardest place you've had to reach when cleaning and you'll be entered into a prize draw to win a Dyson (could be vacuum, an Air Multiplier fan or a Dyson Hot).

Thanks, MNHQ

Non-tester: the hardest place I have to clean is under my settees as they have recliners and the mechanisms mean it weighs an absolute tonne so I can't move it on my own (without dragging it and scratching the floor!). When reclined it is a very tricky angle to get the hose in so the sucker bit is on the floor, I just have to wiggle it about a bit under there and hope for the best!

Just done the filming that was so much fun will send the video tonight

Sorry before I start I am just seeing if I have worked out how to put stuff in bold!

The balance challenge - "We know that often busy parents need to multi task. So can you still vacuum with the Dyson digital slim whilst the other hand is doing something else - carrying the baby, the dog, the phone, cooking, putting things away (you name it)".

I found this a bit of a tricky test. My youngest children are really too old to carry aged 3! Basically the question is - can you vacuum with one hand? The answer is yes, but it is easier with two. I found it good to vacuum with one hand and use the other to move toys off the floor temporarily whilst I hoovered under them. As it is very quick to grab and vacuum with this machine, I would say that you would not have to use one hand very often.

The versatility challenge - "how useful are the different attachments in cleaning those hard to reach places?"

The long thin attachment got behind my radiators which were real dust mines. However, it only reached half way down. I like the brush for skirting boards but preferred using the "soft dusting brush" for these. This brush was not part of the kit supplied but was loaned to me by someone else who has one of these. The narrow head of the pet hair brush allowed me to vacuum around the toilet in my bathroom which is a place that is too narrow for my wider headed usual vacuum.

The cobweb challenge - "can you reach those high up cobwebs that have been sat there lurking for a while?"

It is great for high-up cobwebs. In addition every July/August I seem to spend half an hour each night removing a spider from every corner of all four kids rooms! This is going to be great - spider removing at speed! I did find that when I was vacuuming with the long attachment above my head I needed to use my other hand to carry some of the weight of the machine and help manoeuvre it into position.

The family mess challenge - "pets, children, mud, crisps, crumbs? what family mess can the Dyson digital slim pick up?"

It picks up anything I tried although I didn't try anything "wet" like damp mud. Great for hamster sawdust scattered about, great for gravel/dried mud by the front door. The general debris after meals and craft activities were easily picked up. We don't live near the beach but if we did this would be great for a vacuum off as you come in the front door! Sand in the shoes from nursery etc! We do not have a dog or cat, but if we did then this would be fantastic for pet hair. The pet hair sucker sucked so hard it was actually a bit tricky to push it backwards and forwards!

The 20 minute dash challenge - Guests turning up announced? How much of the house can you clean in 20 minutes with the Dyson digital slim?

I was able to give my 5 bedroom house a quick vacuum in all the obvious visible areas/areas of high footfall. I didn't do each room perfectly but just whizzed around doing the bits I could see needed doing. I did not time exactly, and I used boost a bit, but I managed the whole lot just before it ran out of charge. I found it quite hard to vacuum for the full 15/20 mins due to the trigger switch, which I will post about separately later.

my least favourite place to clean are my wooden blinds. If you cant find the attachment for your hoover (that is me) use an old sock (slightly damp) on your hand to damp dust blinds when closed.

My cleaning tip is to keep it really simple; once I realised all I needed was a vacuum cleaner, some cloths, a spray water bottle, some lemons and some bicarb, it was completely liberating! No more smelly, toxic cleaning products for my little ones to breathe in. My number one cleaning tip is to dust with a microfibre cloth; they dust anything, clean windows beautifully, and when combined with a squirt of water can tackle anything. Genius. The hardest place to reach when cleaning is the fiddly bits inside the oven that have burnt on grime, but my second best cleaning tip is to put a bowl of boiling water in the oven after it's been used. The condensation lifts off all the grime, which can then be wiped away with a cloth. No more toxic oven cleaners which can be dodgy to use when pregnant and around children.

The BACK SEAT OF MY CAR where my daughter sits is the hardest place to clean! Its a treasure trove of crumbs, toys, pens, wrappers, food & tissues! She once left some crayons in the car in summer and they melted all over the back seat , Nightmare !!!! lol . I live on a main road so can't drag my hoover accross the road, so have to use the local garage 4 miles away (costs me a fortune so would love a battery operated vac that I could use ANYTIME, ANYPLACE ANYWHERE !

The hardest (near impossible!) place to clean in our house is the corner of ceiling above our stairs. The house has high ceilings and a big landing and there is nothing that will reach that corner - too high above the stairs, and too far from the landing.

Whichever spider has set up residence is obviously guarding its territory well, because there is luckily only the one (quite big!) cobweb there.

What I need is a long pole I can tie a cloth on to the end of. What I rely on is our guests having less than perfect eyesight!!

What I like about this Dyson

No wires.

Great for spot cleaning of crumbs etc.

Reaches dust/spiderwebs in high places.

Makes me a lot more relaxed about the mess that the four children make!

Good for sucking up the hairs in the bathroom that the other vacuum seems to miss.

Has a little bumper so it feels cushioned when I vacuum forwards into a skirting board.

Can attach the soft dusting tool and do easy power assisted dusting.

If you had a small place to vacuum, this could be your only cleaner. However, if you have large areas to clean, I think you would still need an upright, ideally.

What I am not so keen on

Having to squeeze the on button. Mine keeps cutting out and I am not sure if this is a fault or whether my hand is just getting tired and not squeezing hard enough. It is not as hard as the petrol pump but having to squeeze is quite tiring. This makes this machine unsuitable for the elderly or disabled people with hand muscle weakness.

Vacuums have to be relatively heavy because the motor is heavy. With an upright vacuum gravity is your friend because the machine rests on the ground (although you have to push it to and fro). With this machine, you push to and fro but also have to carry the weight of the hoover. This makes this vacuum great for high up cleaning, skirting boards, cars, stairs, hard to reach places, and spot cleaning, but not good for huge areas of carpet. In my view you will still need an upright hoover for big flat areas.

This machine only has a two year guarantee. My other machine (not Dyson) has a 5 year guarantee. I would expect my machine to last longer than 2 years.

There was no information about how energy efficient the machine is. My other machine boasted that over the 5 year guarantee period, it would "save" £250 worth of electricity, which is what the machine cost. That makes buying it a bit of a no-brainer. If Dyson is similar, it should say so!

I have a tip for one of the most annoying jobs! - The top of your kitchen cupboards, where all the greasy dust gathers. Just spread sheets of newspaper on the top of the cupboards and then you just fold them up, dirt and all and replace with fresh sheets! - so much easier than scrubbing with flash!

Non-tester.
The hardest place to clean is the small space between the spindles at the top of the stairs and the landing. It runs at the angle of the stairs of course and is half a metre or so in length and an inch across. It's really awkward to get to. I can clean a small patch at a time putting my hand in the gaps between the spindles but it's a chore as I could clean it easily using the hose attachment of my DC04 but alas it's 14 years old now and the hose is broken at the top. Still works perfacty but I can no longer clean that awkward space.

Non tester

Hardest place to clean - in the car after much taxiing of footballing boys and muddy dogs. Under the seats and round the tight corners the cleaning attachments are too long to get into the right angle to clean under seats etc.

Cleaning tip - delelgate in return for appropriate rewards (ds1 -money, ds2 -chocolate, dh - 'appreciation'.

Tester here. Just wanted to add a couple of points.

First of all, when I was cleaning the inside of my car the red strip on the small head (the one with the brush attachment) came off.

I think it would be useful if I didn't have to keep the button pressed to use the Dyson as it does make my hand/finger hurt after a while.

When emptying the Dyson when it's full the contents don't fall out easily and I have to pull the dust/hairs etc. out with my fingers which I'm not too keen on. Maybe I'm being a bit too careful and should bash the Dyson against the side of the bin though.

Also in the bedroom with the standard head (ball head) I found that it was pushing hairs in front of it rather than hoovering them up. Both my daughter and I do have long hair but still I would expect it to manage to pick up the hairs. Even on boost mode it was pushing some hairs in front of it.

Also I found that (as with my upright Dyson) long hairs and threads got wrapped around the brush on the standard head (and smaller head too) and I had to take it apart to pull them off which took a while.

However, I think it's great for quickly picking up crumbs, for hoovering through when guests are arriving, for cleaning the inside of the car and it's great for cleaning up cobwebs and for dusting the hearth.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to test the Dyson.

The red strip on the small vacuum head came off yesterday whilst I was getting at the stairs.

Thanks for all the feedback from the testers - and the tips from the non testers.
For testers we now have some final questions - please answer the below:

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44
What have you found it good for around the house?
What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc
Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?

thanks MNHQ

Here are my answers to the final questions.

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44
I think this is a great portable vacuum cleaner, I love it!

What have you found it good for around the house?
Great for quickly picking up crumbs etc, for quickly vacuuming through if guests are coming round, for vacuuming the car and for getting cobwebs.

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc
I found it fairly light so okay for short use but if for example I was vacuuming the cobwebs in a large room I would start to struggle. It does take a while to charge but this hasn't been a problem at all as I still have my upright Dyson if I really needed to vacuum whilst it was charging. If it was my only vacuum cleaner I can see it could be a problem though. The accessories are great, I didn't feel anything was missing and they are easy to change and attach. I like the fact that two of them are stored on the charging unit.

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?
Yes, I would definitely recommend it as an additional vacuum cleaner.

What have you found it good for around the house?
It's great for a quick clean. Really easy for the stairs and for places where the plug sockets aren't very accessible (because it's cordless)

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc
It's leightweight, which is good. Means it's easy to use for the stairs. I don't really think 5.5hrs charging time for 20 mins of use (8 mins if using boost function) is very good - that's not really enough for a proper thorough clean so I couldn't really use the Dyson as my one and only vacuum. Like the accessories and how easy they are to click in but there's no labelling for them. Absolutely love the ball though - really good for awkward areas and for generally being easy to push about.

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?
Yes, but only as an additional cleaner. I think it's main selling point is that you can use it for jobs that are difficult with an upright, corded vacuum.

Overall opinion - I adore it!

Around the house - I've found it great for everything. Quick clean ups, dusty rooms, around the pet cage, crumbled mud on the floor, crumbs, you name it

Accessories/charge etc - the accessories are great especially the brush bit for dusting. I like the narrow one so I can get right to the edges of things. I found it lightweight and it didn't aggravate my sciatica. You don't realise how much of a PITA a cord is until you use this! The charge seems to last me ages to be honest, I haven't made it run out yet. Or maybe I need to vacuum more?!

Would I recommend? I already have. My colleague is borrowing it for her car to test, my Dad has already tried to sneak off with it. I think I'd cry if anyone took it off me

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44

Very impressed overall. Enjoy using it so it encourages me to clean. Lightweight and attachments easy to change over.

What have you found it good for around the house?

It is very useful for cleaning out cupboards e.g. bottom of wardrobe and removing dust of skirting boards. It encourages me to do extra jobs as it is quick and easy. Good for cobwebs. Don't need to plug in so I can use it anywhere quickly

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc

Lightweight which suits me as I find pushing a heavy upright makes my hip ache. Charging time ok but wasn't sure if I should switch it off at wall when charged or leave it permanently plugged in. does it automatically cut off when charged like a mobile? Accessories good and liked the way 2 clipped on. Other head could do with a place. easy to grab off the wall.

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?

I talk about it to my friends and family and showed my friend yesterday. How could you not talk about it. Am I turning into Aggie and kim. My other cleaners haven't been used at all.

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44

I really love it. It's made such a difference to how we do things here and I wouldn't want to give it up now I've tried it.

What have you found it good for around the house?

Mainly just keeping a standard of cleanliness. It's not a big job anymore and the ease f just grabbing and going has made accidents with the kids far less stressful. It's become second nature just to quickly deal with something the second it happens rather then put it off for when I have the chance to get out the big upright hoover, plug it in etc..

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc

The weight is fine - very light and easy to use. I love the ball attachment and how easy it makes it to zip around the room. Charge time seems ok for us so far. I've managed to do all rooms on one charge. The recharge time seems excessive when you see it written down but in reality it's fine and I've not found us desperately waiting for it to recharge. The boost button has been handy - I use it for those bits I don't do everyday - like under the sofa every other week. I would have liked some more detailed instructions as to what the other bits were for.

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?

I would (and have!) because I really think it turns a big faff of a job into something so quick and easy. I'm no domestic goddess and am queen of procrastinating but this really has changed my routine. It's meant I keep on top of things and I now put the effort in to do a little everyday rather then a big clean every week.

Final answers:

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44
Overall, this is a smart little vacuum which packs a punch. Any worries I had about it being far too small to do much have been answered. This slick, helpful little tool is well worth the asking price as its so versatile

What have you found it good for around the house?
Nooks and crannies- the places my big beast of a vacuum couldn't get to before are light work for the Dyson. Ditto those pesky cobwebs (no need to endanger yourself by standing on a chair with a feather duster!). Also, really helpful and safe to use up my steep staircase (I've dropped vacuums down my staircase before). Its also handy for the car too- no need for an extra in car Vac, or extension leads.

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc
Only slight annoyance is having to keep my finger on the power button. Not a massive problem but its just as simple to have a regular on/off switch? The lightness was great for me as I have arthritis in my hands and finger joints. Charge time is fine, its happy to sit on its wall fixing and charge away. I do have to charge it quite promptly if using the Max function and vacuuming the whole of upstairs though. Its so simple to fit together on first removing from the box that I didn't once look at the instructions. Its just a simple couple of clicks for any of the attachments.

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?
Yes- I've raved about it to the family and I do believe one of my dsil's is already ordering one! And that's high praise indeed- she makes Kim and Aggie look like tramps!

My tip is don't buy anything Dyson.

Please tell us your overall opinion of the DC44

is that i love it - i realistically would never have bought it at that price but having been given it i really, really love it - it is so much more convenient.

What have you found it good for around the house?

quick cleaning, dog hair quick clean ups before mopping (always have to hoover before mopping because of black lab and it's a pain to drag out a full size hoover just to do the kitchen floor quickly), stairs - also i'm more inclined to hoover upstairs when it doesn't involve lugging the hoover up.

What about the features such as: weight of the vac, recharging time, charge time, accessories etc

good on weight, recharging time too slow really given you only get 20mins out of it, 20 mins is surprisingly 'doable' and i tend not to empty the charge and stick it back on the charger as i do little and more often than before so actually it always has charge, accessories ok

Do you think you'd recommend to other people (if asked)?

yes i would recommend though i'd point out the drawbacks - certainly would recommend to the people i know for whom money isn't an issue - less likely to do so for those on a budget

In our old house we used to have to erect scaffolding (we have our own tower and everything) to vacuum the high ceilings - was a converted chapel. And I could fill up an entire vacuum dust chamber with just the spiders from the roof - urgh.

My top tip for vacuuming is if you have kids, accept that the floors will be messy again very quickly. You can get frustrated or you can shrug and accept imperfection with dignity. Embrace your inner slattern I say

What is the email address we are supposed to send the video clips to? Am really confused by the website!!