Customer Reviews

Dyson DC 11 Telescope Canister

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Ok, after much deliberation, I bought the Dyson canister for the sheer selling point that it was a canister and it was made by Dyson. I won't lie, I have waited for the Dyson canister to be released here in the States since they started marketing the DC07. I really liked the idea of a bagless canister with no filters to buy. My family is very health conscious and we try to do our part for the environment. Upon inspection of the unit after removing it from the box, I noticed that the HEPA filter was of great quality and the bactisafe screen just looked cool. I plugged it in and kicked it on and much to my surprise it had as much suction, if not more, than the Animal upright. The downside to the DC11 is the fact that its turbobrush is air-turbine powered and tends to slow down or stop a lot on medium to high pile carpets. Our house is one of theose strange creatures with high pile, medium pile, tile, wood, and even cork. So, I tested the vacuum on all the floors and found it worked great on everything except carpet. There it seemed to be lacking. I tested it for about a week and then was forced to return it for an Animal upright. After vacuuming with the DC11 and then going over the same areas of carpet with a Eureka canister with powered brush, I found the Eureka was removing almost as much dirt and from the carpet as the Dyson originally did. There is just not enough agitation in the brush to work great on carpet. Final verdict, great for floor, may need some compromise for carpets.

I was intrigued by the split among the reviewers of the Dyson DC 11. I carefully read the reviews, took note of what appeared to be the common problems and then evaluated it in person before making the purchase. As vacuums go, this is relatively expensive so I didn't want to deal with any unpleasant surprises. I don't mind spending money but I sure do hate to waste it!

Let me begin with the common complaints:

1) the power cord is awfully short.
The sales material clearly states the cord is 21.7 feet long. The vacuum and telescoping wand add about five feet to that. It seems adequate to me but others will have to make their own judgment.
2) the air driven brush on the floor tool may turn off unexpectedly.
I haven`t yet experienced that problem, but if you do just pull the air release trigger on the wand and it will come back on. There is no need as stated by others to turn the machine off to reset.
3) The power on/off button and the power cord rewind are the same color and shape.
Put a small red "stick on" dot on the power switch and the problem will go away. If Dyson reads these reviews they should at least make them different colors.
4) The wand collapses unexpectedly.
Pull each section until you hear an audible "click" and it will not collapse. It takes a little extra energy to do that.
5) The beater will not handle carpet with a heavy pile.
That is probably true. I have wood floor and area rugs so it works fine on those. The beater brushes are removable for those of you with oriental or wool rugs where the beating action might do damage.

My own take is as follows:

1) Build quality
In a word--fabulous. It assembles and disassembles very easily. The canisters even come apart so you can rinse/wash them if you like. It seems solid and well made.
2) Suction
I thoroughly vacuumed a high traffic short pile area rug with my old vacuum and then with the Dyson. I was actually stunned at the amount of dirt it took out of the rug. A definite A+ here.
3) Functionality
Everything works as advertised. The noise level is average, the hose could be a bit longer and it's a minor wrestling match to wrap the hose around it for storage.
4) Price
It's a little on the expensive side. I purchased at Bed, Bath and Beyond and they allowed me to use a 20% off coupon even though the coupon excluded Dyson. It never hurts to ask!!

The bottom line is that this is a fabulous vacuum for an apartment or small to average size house (1500-1800 sq ft) with a mixture of floor types. If I had lots of wall to wall carpet an upright would be a much better choice. I'd rate it a solid buy. I'll update this review if anything changes.

I was looking for a bagless canister vacuum to use mainly on my hardwood and tile floors. I already have the Dyson Purple Animal which does a great job on carpet, but I can't get under furniture with it without using the wand and floor tool. My first impression of the Telescope was that it was doing a good job of cleaning the areas for which I bought it. But there were a few problems - 1) the power cord is awfully short (compared to the Animal), 2) the air driven brush on the floor tool comes on when the machine is turned on - you have to turn it off for hard floors by pushing in on a lever of sorts on the side of the tool. The problem is that when you're doing carpet the slightest touch to this lever turns it off - such as when you bump into a piece of furniture, or even the edge of a comforter hanging from the bed. It is very sensitive to touch and doesn't always stay out the first time you pull it out. 3) The floor tool from the Animal will not work with the Telescope. There is an adapter to make the Turbo tool work with the telescope, but not the floor tool. I prefer the bristle floor tool from the Animal to the floor tool which comes with the Telescope and was disappointed that it wouldn't fit. Customer service was wonderful and they sent the adapter for the Turbo tool, which I then adapted myself to use with the floor tool. 4) The power on/off button and the power cord rewind are colored and shaped the same, just on different sides of the machine. You have to look carefully (or memorize the locations) to avoid hitting the wrong one. 5) Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I've ever used it and had the telescoping wand stay extended the first time. One section always collapses and I have to extend it again.

Overall, the Dyson machines are very nice - clean well, store easily, empty easily. The Telescope is amazingly small when in storage mode and it's easy to carry when cleaning. While I'm not planning on returning the Telescope, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't purchase it. I don't think it's worth the money being charged for it.

After reading reviews and testing this vacuum and others at the local stores, I finally bought the Dyson canister. I have wall-to-wall carpet at home. Since I have played with this vacuum many times at the stores, putting it together out of the box was very easy. The suction was very good, but few problems made me rate this vacuum less than great and I am actually returning it to the store.
1/ Like one of the reviewers mentioned before, the brush does actually slow down in my medium-thickness carpet and it did stop completely twice.
2/ Larger objects (Cereal...) get pushed away by the brush, with the regular back and forth movement of a normal vacuuming. But once under the brush THEY GOT SUCKED AWAY...
3/ The button Carpet/floor is located at the side of the brush, which is not very convenient. Ok, that is not a big deal. But a slight bump will make it switch to floor mode. This happened to me and it would not switch back to carpet even after many attempts to pull the button. I had to turn the vacuum off and again on to get the brush going again.
4/ The brush is too small to handle larger things. I had a small piece (about 1/2"x1")of plastic (bag) stuck after the brush at the entrance of the wand.

I was disappointed at this machine. I thought I did my homework!! It has a great suction power but the brush head is a problem especially for medium to high carpet. I tried it at the local store on a low carpet and it worked great.

If you don't have a medium to high carpet and don't have messy kids around, this machine might still work great for you.
I will try the Dyson upright and hope it wont let me down too.

We have had our DC11 for three weeks at the time I am writing this. It replaced a 5 year old top of the line Hoover canister that died. The Hoover proved to be only average in total satisfaction over the time we had it. When searching for a new vacuum my top priorities were suction, bag-less and HEPA filtration. I was willing to sacrifice in other areas for these key features. I considered most of the top brands but was enticed by the Dyson because it was not only bag-less but also had a lifetime HEPA filter which will save lots of money and waist over the life of the unit. After getting the DC11 I was immediately impressed with the build quality and suction. There are lots of smart design features which make using unit a joy. We have about 50/50 medium pile carpet and hard floors, it cleans each equally well. My only real complaint is the length of the hose and cord are on the short side. This is not major and I am happy to live with it and is even less of an issue being that the unit is so light an portable. The unit is not the most quite on the market but that was not a key selling point for me. It is much quieter then our old vac but noticeably louder then a Lindhaus. I highly recommend the DC11 if you are looking for a vacuum with great suction, no bags and lifetime HEPA filters.

Forget the negative reviews. This vacuum is awesome. I had debated getting the cannister vs the upright after reading some of the reviews. I wondered whether it had the power of the upright. Maybe suction had been sacrificed to design and small size. The answer is no. I came in with somewhat lowered expectations, after all how great caould these vacuums really be. A vacuum is a vacuum. Well I was stunned what this vacuum picked up of a Persian carpet in 5 or 6 test sweeps. Incredible!

The upright may be better for wall to wall carpetting but for my purposes this is the vacuum. It's light compact and powerful and beautiful.

I just bought this after reading several magazine articles and the reviews on Amazon. Some of the reviews on this site were slightly off-putting, but I bought it anyway because I have used several other Dyson products, which were all spectacular. Suction on the device is excellent, and the details and accessories are uniformly well-designed. The DC11 includes a lot of features that are very helpful while in use that I didn't even know I needed. Everything is very well thought out and works well, especially the telescoping handle, which allows for extremly compact storage.

It is, however, more complicated than the average vacuum and requires a bit of knowledge before it can be used properly. It is not the ideal vacuum for a family where the kids do the vacuuming, to say the least, as they would most likly use it incorrectly.

As for the negative feedback in this forum, I believe most of it is accurate, although I don't think it outweighs the positives. A lot of junk collects in the canisters, which can be eye-opening, but I suspect you would see that in most vacuums if the bags were transparent. The canisters are also smaller than most bags, which gives the impression that its sucking up a very large amount of debris. You will need to empty the canisters more often than you would a bag, but you'll need to buy new bags, well ... never. So that's nice, right?

A lot of the complaints were directed at the spinning carpet head, which is very, very well designed and a wonder to behold. If you are vacuuming hard surfaces, however, the spinning head will most likely disengage. This is great if you are switching from a carpet to a hard floor, but does mean that you will need to push a button every time that you switch from hard floor to the carpet. If you bump the button while vacuuming, it will stop the spinning head as well, which is a bit of a pain.

The only other common complaint in this forum was that the telescoping tube or the hose clogs. This hasn't happened to me, ever, alhtough I did get a clog in the carpet head once, after trying to vacuum spilled dry spaghetti on the carpet. The clog was easy to clear, however, and it didn't present a problem for me. The aperture between the hose and the carpet head is a little small, though, so if you try to vacuum stupid stuff like pasta or bent paperclips, I would bet you could recreate my clog.

I have a NY apartment with lots of nooks and crannies, so it's a perfect machine for me (really light and portable, and it rolls right with you instead of falling over, which is what my last vacuum did). If you do a lot of vacuuming in a large home, however, an upright might be a better choice.

Bottom line, this is an extremely well thought out and functional machine that would be ideal for an intelligent user who needs to meticulously clean medium-sized places.

I have two - one in different houses. I do not have wall-to-wall carpet (hate the stuff), so my experience is with wood floors, area rugs (thick and thin), and furniture.

First, the size and ergonomics are very good. Easy to manuever around corners and furniture. Though, the beater head doesn't always let you get under low pieces (but many other vacs don't either).

Next, the DC11 keeps excellent vacuum power all the time. I had both bag and bagless before. They leaked where they could and clogged up sooner than later. Huge pains in the butt. I even had to use hose clamps to keep the 'bag' vac from losing suction - that was real pretty! Anywho, the DC11 hose connections are tight and purposeful. Even the accessory attachments fit tight.

Also, there are some references to this machine making more noise than some. To me, it was reasonably quiet for the power it generates. My other vacs where definitely louder.

There are two ways to empty the dirt. The first is to press the button that unhinges the bottom and the dirt falls out. The other is to take the entire bottom off (a different button) and dump the dirt out, turning the clear plastic cylinders upside down. I do it the latter way because, when I unhinge the very bottom, some dirt always gets on the rubber seal and I have to wipe it off (making sure I get the most secure vacuum seal). However, either way works fine.

The beater bar does sometime bog a little in thicker carpet. If you have alot of carpet, I'd get an upright. For me, the DC11 is perfect. It depends on your floors and use. And if it does stop, just pull the little trigger a the handle and off it goes. Also, I notice that the little round "disc" at the side of the beater that you press to turn off the beater itself, does sometimes need to have the lint cleaned off of it. If this gets too much lint on it, it'll not engage correctly. Not a big problem; just keep this in mine before calling the help line.

Finally, the price. What dollar amount do you put on a clean house? How many other vacs do you buy first? How many bags do you buy? etc... Some people will buy many cheaper items instead of one better and more expensive one. Always buy the best you can afford. It really does pay for itself in the long run.

I've had our Dyson for about 3 months now so I can't comment on reliability. What we have noticed is much less dust accumulates on the furniture compared to our old vacuum. It has powerful suction, stores easily and very compact. Contrary to some reviews, we find the cord length of the cord to be adequate at over 21 feet. I was skeptical due to the fact that the beater bar is powered by the vacuum suction and not by a belt driven motor but you can see that it's spinning very fast and works good on our carpet.My wife likes the on board attachments and says they work well on the furniture and curtains and are easy to change.It's easy to remove and empty the dirt storage compartment and we like not having to change messy paper bags. The only thing that is somewhat of a drawback is that it is a little tipsy if you try to pull it from side to side but not that much of a problem.

I have to say that we love this vacuum and have been recommending it to everyone. We chose it specifically because our entire house (with the exception of one room) is hardwood. In response to some earlier posts, this is NOT a difficult vacuum to use. It does require some basic setup, but I didn't have any challenges with that. And when using the floor tool on non-carpeted surfaces, you should turn off the brushes - the suction is enough to pick up things (including pennies!) and it will keep the brushes from "flicking" objects away. Also, my husband thinks it does a great job on the carpet in his office as well.

What I like most:

1. It's SO small and light - easy to carry around the house, up and down stairs, etc.
2. It's fairly quiet - I was surprised at how quiet it is since consumer reports didn't rank it very highly in that area.
3. It picks things up from the corners, even when using the floor tool. The suction is just that good.
4. It has a decreased suction level for doing curtains, area rugs, etc.
5. I like being able to see all of the dirt that it has picked up - silly as this may sound, it inspires me to vacuum more often.
6. I find the switch to turn the brushes off easy to use (and easy to turn off again).
7. It's very easy to empty the canister, although the potential is there for a big mess!
8. We actually have the DC11 Full gear, which is silver and purple, so as trivial as it may be, I love the way it looks.
9. It picks up all the cat hair off the couch. Hurray!

Things I think could be better:
1. As mentioned before, the power cord is too short. Since it's so small, that may be hard to avoid, but it can be a bit of a pain.
2. Also as mentioned before, I find that the telescoping wand doesn't always stay extended as I'm cleaning.
3. I agree with a previous poster that it would be nice to have the power button and the cord retract button more obviously distinguishable.

Despite the few small design quirks, this is truly an amazing vacuum.