Electrolux bagged canister vacuum

My wife and I went in search of a new vacuum a couple of years ago.  After looking around online and visiting a couple of stores, we came across the Electrolux Harmony model at Boscov's and thought we'd found "the one."

It was expensive -- $300 -- but it seemed to be everything we wanted in a vacuum.  It was lightweight, portable, quiet, and since it was an Electrolux, we figured it would certainly run well.  So we bought it.

At first it was a let-down.  The vacuum IS lightweight and portable, which is nice, but it had next to no cleaning power.  Our house is almost all carpeted, and the vacuum only pulled up a fraction of the dirt and debris that had accumulated in the carpet.  We dog-sat for my brother's dog last summer, and we're still finding dog hair in the carpet because the vacuum refuses to grab it.

It comes with several different attachments, and once we discovered the "turbo" brush, the suction got a lot better, but still left something to be desired.  Vacuuming the house had become a tiring chore of going over every bit of carpet two or three or sometimes four times to get up whatever dirt is sitting on it.  On tile the vacuum seems to work marginally better.

On the plus side, the vacuum certainly is quieter than most other vacuums I've used.  It comes with a HEPA filter, which I'm sure is a bonus for many people, and it has a button that (at first) would retract the power cord when you were done cleaning like a hyperactive snake.  Now when you press the button the cord barely twitches.

Once the bag starts to get full, the suction power drops dramatically.  And hair easily gets tangled in the brushes, but with a new bag, the turbo attachment, and clean brushes, the vacuum runs fairly well.

I haven't used too many vacuums, so there's not much I can compare it to, but it seems to me that for the money we spent on this thing, it could pull dirt a little better.  However, we've had it over two years and it hasn't had any serious problems or malfunctions.  I would recommend buying a cheaper vacuum that may not last as long, but will cost a lot less.