Just as in any product vacuum cleaners too have a number of price segments. You get simple, cheap ones, and you get really high tech, and obscenely expensive ones too. Dirt Devil operates in the cheaper end of the segment and whether you believe it or not, it is only those who have never used a Dirt Devil who think it is bad.
Even in this segment the Dirt Devil Featherlite vacuum is their cheapest one on offer, and one of the cheapest upright vacuum you will get anywhere. It is a very low tech product, but it is still popular, and not only because of its price. Let us look at exactly why the Featherlite makes such a good buy.
Dirt Devil Featherlite Vacuum Features
There are three things that make the Featherlite a good buy, and we will see what they are one by one.
The first of course is the price. At less than $45 for a vacuum, it’s one of the cheapest ones you will find in the market. Purely from a financial perspective, if you are going to pay upwards of $200 for what you think is a good quality vacuum, and if you think it lasts you 10 yrs, you can basically get 4 of these featherlites during that time, and as long as it lasts you 3 yrs you’re good.
And let us tell you, it lasts way more than three years. There is in fact one review from one user who has used it for 3 yrs already, and thinks it should last at least another three more. And not only is its initial cost low, it’s running cost too is low. The bags are not too expensive which means that over the life of the machine, you probably wouldn’t even spend a total of $100 including bags. Compare this to other vacuums that ask you to pay two or three times this just because they are a bagless model. It just doesn’t make any sense.
The second good thing about the Featherlite is its low weight. It weighs only 14 lbs which is one of the lightest ones in the market. Most other vacuums will weigh at least 5 or 6 lbs more, and this weight difference means you can carry it easily wherever you want to go.
Some people feel that the low weight is because of the bad plastic. Well, the plastic is not bad, it’s just hollow to reduce weight. The handle is therefore made of hollow plastic, and the paneling is thinner than in other machines. The question is not in what other people offer, but in whether this is enough. And as the reviewer above said, she has used it for more than 3 yrs without any problems. Unless you are seriously going to be knocking it about, there’s no reason for the plastics not to last.
The last good thing is the power. Most other vacuums that come in this price range offer you are paltry 5 or 6 amp motor. The Dirt Devil Featherlite comes with a 12 amp motor which is equal to what higher priced machines come with. With this kind of power, there is no way that the machine will not be able to clean, and this is borne out by the fact that most users are actually surprised that such a cheap vacuum can clean so well.
It’s a very simple machine and there is not much that can go wrong with it. The brushes in front are detachable and you can clean them under the tap. There is no indicator light to tell you that the bag is full, but you’ll know soon enough because there will be an appreciable drop in suction when it gets full.
It also comes with a headlight feature so that you can operate it under your furniture and in dark corners without any trouble.
In fact when you strip a vacuum down to its basics, and just retain those things that make a vacuum cleaner what it is, you get the featherlite. The only negative, and that too not a big one is that it is a bit noisy. Most users are however ok with it because for the price you pay for it, this hardly matters.
Our Recommendation
We would say go ahead and buy it. As we explained the math above, a simple vacuum cleaner that costs just $45, and one that works really well is what most of us needs. And at this price you can actually afford to replace them every other year, and they will cost you the same in the long run as most other expensive models. The Dirt Devil Featherlite takes value for money to an entirely different plane, one that other manufacturers just cannot touch.
Of course many people just ignore it because they feel that it’s not built well. What we say is, at $45 you cannot expect more than what the Featherlite gives. In any case, it’s not like the plastics just break and fall off. Most reviews from users actually say that unless you are going to deliberately setting out to break the plastic, they stand up quite well. The motor is really powerful, and the bags are paper ones that are very cheap.
And if at all you feel that the filter inside is not doing it’s job, just get a HEPA filter for some other machine, cut it down to size and use that instead. Not only are HEPA filters much more efficient, they are also washable and reusable. And they are pretty cheap too.
At the price at which they sell, the warranty is not even needed. Most users calculate that if it lasts them 3 yrs they’ve got their money’s worth, and it lasts longer. This machine gets a 4.5 star rating from us for this.
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Hi, I'm Michelle Green, the editor here at Vacuumologist. I hope you enjoyed reading this honest vacuum review as much as I enjoyed researching and creating it. I would love to hear what you think. Please add you comments below. |