Dyson V6 Motorhead Cord-Free Vacuum

I already have one of these vacuums and love it so much I was delighted to add another for the bedroom area of my house. I'm old and anything that can make life easier scores high, plus I've dealt with Dyson customer service and am confident in their quality. I bought the original Dyson cordless stick vac several years ago and found it so handy for quick tidy ups I was drawn to purchase this model from a QVC offer that included the soft motorhead brush which is especially good in the kitchen. I noticed that this model has a bigger head and more power than the original but seems more manageable and is no heavier. Also the filter is much easier to change. It works so well on carpeting with the regular motorhead spinning brush seen here that I found I didn't need to take my big heavy corded vacuum out nearly as much. In fact after a knee injury last year, I couldn't use the big one at all for a while. When I saw this refurbished one on sale, I decided to retire my original one that wasn't as effective anymore with the long shaft, but still works fine as a handheld with the crevice tool. I have plenty of uses for that, cleaning out the car, closets and such, and will now have this new one close at hand for larger jobs. One tip that has worked for me is that when I vacuum carpets, fine dust/lint tends to gather around the screen inside the dust cup and doesn't fall out immediately when the cup is emptied so I keep a wooden chopstick next to the unit and use that to encourage that extra to fall out. It works great and makes emptying the cup easier. Since I've used other Dyson handhelds in the past I know all the quirks and felt confident trying this 'reconditioned' version. I suspect it was probably a return from a purchaser who didn't take to it given that these are expensive items and some people's expectations may be overly high. No, it doesn't vacuum all by itself, but is as close to ideal as anything I've tried, plus is a real work horse with an impressively long lifespan. I assume the 'reconditioning' was really cleaning and repackaging. I have no reason to think differently as the unit works just like it was new. When on Max power, you get the feeling the unit would raise dirt from under the house. It's impressive. When you switch from regular power to Max the unit stops itself and restarts with the different power level while you're holding the trigger. Regular is fine for nearly everything and lasts long enough for me to do quite a bit before needing to recharge. Most of my jobs are short ones so I don't always return it to the charging station in between uses. I'm more likely to prop it behind the door in my office where it's easy to grab. It will last out of the charger for ages when not in use, as do the regular handhelds. The charging doesn't take very long even when the battery is fully depleted and when it's fully charged again the blue light goes out and the charger becomes inactive so the battery is protected. I like to keep an extra filter on hand so I don't have to depend on it being a sunny day to speed drying after rinsing it out. I put the clean filter in and then rinse out the 'dirty' one and leave it to dry for use the next time I switch them. All in all, I'm very pleased with Dyson vacs in general, but especially pleased with this one. It does such a great job, I rarely feel the need to push the big one around anymore. This one is handier and more versatile, plus gets places the big one doesn't. It comes with a crevice tool and little brush tool, but all the other Dyson tools from my other units fit so I don't need to add extras. If you don't have a collection like I do, I recommend the soft motorhead tool for bare floors. It works on carpeting too but isn't as aggressive as the one that comes on this unit, which, of course works on bare floors as well, but that soft one picks up chunky stuff really easily and manages beautifully when partly on/partly off the edge of an oriental for example. It does the edges around your kitchen floor mat and odd things like that. All in all, I highly recommend this unit.