Well I got a deal on a refurbed unit from Woot and it arrived today. The Rowenta 18 volt stick vac I got about 3 years ago finally got a hole in the flex hose that couples the tiny power head to the body and it's almost impossible to patch up, plus it hates picking up larger chunks of bird food and like that.
I know most here hate Shark vacs but I got a great price with two batteries and all the extras. I just tried it under my parrots cage where all his dropped food pieces and like that end up and it did a great job on low speed, even the big pieces that the Rowenta couldn't deal with and I had to use my old cheap AC stick vac to pick up.
It also did very nicely on my carpet on low speed with the power head in fast carpet mode speed. The thing is quiet and has good suction on low speed and much better on high. We'll see how long it actually lasts and runs per battery but I ran it around maybe 15 minutes playing and trying things and it still had 1 bar of three on normal speed and carpet mode. I paid 139 shipped with a 90 day refurbished Shark warranty and I paid 80 for the Rowenta 3 years ago so figure I mostly got my moneys worth, plus Rowenta does still sell a replacement power head for my unit for about 41 shipped. I have no clue how many parts Shark sells for these but I do know they sell replacement or extra batteries, though not cheap. Will be interesting to see how it does long term but for what I paid as long as it continues to work like it does now for 3 years or so I've got my money out of it. It does have a tiny dirt chamber so have to empty it often but it's easy enough to do and has some somewhat useful attachments for when you go to hand held mode.
It wont compete with my Royals or Compact but impressed at the moment with it to clean up the spot areas.
Comes to the Rescue!
