This product is featured in our Holiday Gift Guide: For Her.

Dyson

About Dyson:

Research, Design and Development is at the core of Dyson. One third of people at Dyson are engineers and scientists. Their expertise in fluid, mechanical, electrical, EMC, thermal, chemical, acoustic and software engineering allows them to design new products as well as challenge and improve existing technologies. Dyson has over 1,200 patents and patent applications for over 250 different inventions (May 2008). Dyson’s RDD investment has quadrupled over the last 5 years. The total number of Dyson vacuum cleaners sold worldwide since 1993 is over 24.5 million (2007) – and still counting. 10 million of these were sold in the last 3 years.

Dyson’s new handheld vacuum line, the DC31 and the DC31 Animal, are powered by DDM, the Dyson digital motor, which is the fastest motor available in a handheld vacuum.  It’s 5 times faster than a formula 1 race car!  This little vacuum weighs in at a mere 38 lbs (Brandon is 21 months old and picks it up and takes it everywhere), and has a lifetime filter, which you just need to rinse off once a month.  It has 2 speeds, and stays charged for up to 10 minutes!  This would be a great Holiday gift for any family.  My husband (and Brandon, who has a strange obsession with vacuums) does all the vacuuming in our house, so I’ll leave this review to him.  And now, here’s Tim….

I’ll just start off by proclaiming my love for the ultra-portable Dyson DC31. We have another traditional vacuum – one of those ones with the really long hose and a bag inside of the big unit on wheels that you have to pull around by the hose, but that thing is really heavy and cumbersome. It’s really hard to get into tough places like the corner of the ceiling because the hose is too short. Don’t even get me started on vacuuming the stairs – I have to lug the unit up and down the stairs.

We were recently lucky enough to have Dyson send us the DC31 for review. It’s a portable, bag-less unit that requires no cables. It is also bagless! This is the first time we’ve had a bag-less vacuum and all I can say is that it’s actually fun to clean up messes now! Here are a few of my favorite parts of using it:

1) I love cleaning up dirt and grime from the carpet and floor and then seeing it inside of the clear container where the garbage is collected! It’s so fun to see all of the interesting stuff that Brandon and I were rolling around on! Brandon also really enjoys watching the swirling motion of the garbage inside of the dirt container, which rotates at 104,000 RPM! This all comes from their patented Root Cyclone technology.

2) It’s great for cleaning my SUV that Brandon makes filthy by dropping crackers and bananas on the seats and carpets.

3) The DC31 is a really powerful little unit; it has about 50% more power than conventional vacuum motors. I haven’t once had a point in time where I wish it had more power. I was also amazed that it had so much power even though it has a rechargeable battery, not to mention the 22.2V battery life which is quite long.

4) It comes with a long-nosed attachment for getting between sofa cushions and hard to reach places.

5) The DC31 Animal version comes with a motorized brush bar that assists in the pickup of really tough pet hair, which we have TONS of.

6) It recharges really quickly – about 3 times faster than other portable units!

The only thing I wish I could change about the DC31 is that I wish the garbage collection container was larger, so that I could go longer without emptying it, but that’s just me being lazy. I should also add that one time I had some problems extracting some pet hair that was hardened to the carpet floor of our SUV with dried coffee, but I don’t think any vacuum could pick that up.

I’m really, really pleased with this Dyson product. Brandon and I can’t wait until we can buy a traditional Dyson vacuum also!

Buy One!

The DC31 retails for $219.99, and the DC31 Animal retails for $269.99.  You can buy Dyson products at dyson.com, amazon.com, and at retailers near you.