Dyson DC47 Animal Compact Canister Vacuum Cleaner

Heavy and Not very sucky
I was really excited about getting this as I have other superior Dyson products. Unfortunately I'm not very happy with the Dyson DC47 Animal Compact Canister vacuum. After a minute my arm was tired from pushing and pulling the front aparatus and canister. The front doesn't glide smoothely at all. Also the the floor attachment bounces off the carpet as it is vacuuming so you have to make multiple swipes over an area to pick up the debris and hair. The debris canister is so small you might as well forget getting anything done in a hurry as you will spend all your time repeatedly emptying the canister; which is dumb for an animal vacuum which is supposed to pick up lots of PET HAIR. And don't expect to make it very far as the cord is SHORT! If you want to use this on a normal staircase be prepared to plug it in once at the top, STOP in the middle, and then plug it in at the botton and then finish working your way down the steps because there is not enough power cord to do it all in one...

Works ok, but awkward
I'm pretty familiar with Dyson products, having used and owned various upright vacuums. I really love their uprights, but I'm sad to say I was a little disappointed in this one, especially for the high price.

Here's what I do like about it:
-It's portable
-Better reaches "Hard to reach" places, including under tables
-Seems good for hard floors
-Retractable cord
-Comes with attachments

Here's what could stand some improvement:
-The canister is small, so you have to empty it frequently
-The cord is very short
-It's awkward to vacuum carpeted areas. Pulling back feels a little difficult.
-The vacuum head is small, so it takes much longer to vacuum a large area.
-I wish the arm attached to the canister for storage so it wouldn't just flop down.

I can see that this would work for small living areas, but for my house and family, I prefer the upright.

Great on Most surfaces, not so much large carpeted areas
I loved this for the hard surfaces on the house, and for baseboards it was also great. The machine is small and relatively quiet, portable and lightweight. There is a Huge HOWEVER here. I had high expectations from this brand, and I was sorely disappointed with its performance on the large carpeted areas of the house. There was a LOT of cat hair left behind, even after several runs over an area. It also didn't want to move backwards, only forwards (meaning it bounced and resisted going backwards following every forward motion, meaning 50% of the process was this annoying bumpy nonsense). I am wondering if I did something wrong, yet this is the first time I've had a vacuum that did so poorly on my carpets and, assuming I DID do something wrong, the first vacuum that required some other special way of working. Not sure what to make of it, but I'm curious if any of you other users out there had this issue.

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