Well, this is one of those mixed bags - it certainly fulfills it main function as advertised, but anything else ranges between annoying and downright unacceptable.
Let's start with the positive aspects:
The Bissell effectively removes even very tough stains, spills, dried in mud and so on from carpets; we have small kids, so the carpets usually have a mixture of chocolate, milk, crayola color, mud, dirt, squashed blueberries, and all kinds of other things in them after a while. This all is not a problem for the Bissell to remove completely - a job normally done in our house by professional carpet cleaners (quite) regularly.
That's it. Nothing more positive - everything else about this thing sucks.
I am only listing the most major annoyances, design flaws, and handling problems here - I already spent way too much time on this thing to write about every little detail that generates hassle and frustration ...
First and foremost, after cleaning the carpet, you need to clean the Bissell - for which you basically have to disassemble the whole unit, to get the dirt out of all the numerous nooks and crannies. And some of those are virtually inaccessible, so you spend easily twice the time trying to remove the dirt from the Bissell than it took this thing to remove if from your carpet.
Then, it runs through the cleaning solution like there was no bottom to the tank. This will get very expensive, if you plan to clean more than the occasional spill with it.
Then there is the issue with filling the water tank - it has a very narrow opening, and since it is so long, it is next to impossible to do that in the sink. So you have have to do that in the bathtub every time.
Then, of course, to clean this thing, you also have to use the bathtub, because it will not fit in the sink. Too bad, that during the cleaning of a regular carpet, so much of the carpet finds its way into the Bissell, in form of clusters of "carpet hair", that it will invariably clog your bathtub when you clean it there. So, better hose it down outside in the garden - good luck with that during the winter months.
Furthermore, the much touted Surround Suction functionality is a mere advertising gag - it does not add any benefit to the cleaning function, and the same goes for the hand tool, which just does not generate much suction at all.
To sum it up - if you are patient enough to accept all the big and little flaws of this Bissell, you will get a machine that effectively cleans even the most hesitant dirt out of the carpet. But I have neither the time nor the inclination to put up with that kind of annoyances - I'd rather give the money to a professional cleaning service once in a while and have no hassle with it.