I'm wary of a vacuum that says "never loses suction" like I'm wary of a gun that says "never stovepipes/misfeeds" - usually if they have to tell you that's not a problem, it probably IS that exact problem.

The Shark Rocket is great when it works, which is usually the first 2-5 years. When it works, it will clean the house, maybe not as well as a Kirby or an Oreck, but it will clean it well enough at least. It's light, it's small, and I used to hot-swap the cleaning head on it all the bloody time without turning it off. Never had a problem with the cleaning head except that plastic hose that goes to the metal tube that sends the dirt to the dust cup.

I brought it to the office, removed the remaining smell using my smell-remover/cleaner of choice - Expo whiteboard cleaner - and I started to use it in the offices of Studio A/B/C/D every month, once a month. Kept those spaces clean, and took away decades of dust off cabinets....probably from the Windows 3.1 era....to thinik I probably was breathing in detrus from Simon Sinofsky's pocket lint for all I knew. Got an essence of DOS era David Plummer running around. IT also vacuumed out many dusty old towers and systems that came to my office for repair. If I'm going to fix your computer, it's going to be done right, and it's going to return as close to new as I can bring it.

This thing was god awful. It only cleaned anything close to normal if you put it on full power, to which it only lasted 15 minutes on the cordless drill battery provided with it. To think I even bothered to screw the charger into the wall in our laundry room! As it was used over a year, sucktion got worse and worse, as did battery life. By the time the Pandemic was in full swing, this thing made my wife's dustbuster look like the Kirby we have as of writing this! And that Dustbuster isn't that great either. Next thing I know my mom's quarter acre mudpit of a yard was easier to mow with a $99 push mower than vacuuming a 2 bedroom apartment with this piece of crap. Also, the attachments were useless, the handle was still too low fully extended, and the LED headlight was more useful as a showstopper than an actual "light".

The Oreck XL SUCKS for carpet. First off, you'll build Arnold Schwartzenegger in his prime strength if you vacuum a whole house carpet. My right arm felt like a gooner who got a six month free pass to a pr0n site after using this thing to clean an entire apartment upon move-out. The force needed to make the non-powered brush on the floor cleaning head is pretty solid. It does an okay enough job though as/is. THis thing was the "supplimental/free" vacuum you got if you bought a full sized Oreck Upright. Their claim to fame with these is not losing suction, and vacuuming small things in the scope between an upright and a dustbuster.

On anything else though, the Oreck XL is a freakin' beast. While not quite as powerful as the Hoover Pet Cyclonic or Kirby Tradition, it does put up with a LOT of abuse. IT's my primary Shop Vac! That's right, I'm plugging this XL into Sanders, grinders, saws, and anything else with an exhaust port on the frequent. We got 25 bags on Amazon for less than a dollar a bag, and I still have 4 left. I also use it for cleaning ceiling fans, and hard to reach areas the Kirby can't reach. Also, if you plug the pipe into the exhaust, it makes a pretty good leaf blower!

Let's talk about how great it was. So basically, it had a lot of power, rarely clogged, did a great job on carpet, sucked anything away, and you could turn the belt on and off with your foot. The height adjustment...however, required turning the vacuum off. When it did clog, it was easy to see where it was, and easy to disassemble and fix. Emptying was no worse than the Kirby's old "Shakeout" bag, though it was nice to be able to detach the cylinder from the vacuum. The hose setup made it easy to switch to "canister mode" easily, and it worked great that way as well.

The only negatives I have to say about this one, is first, it's very heavy, I mean heavier than a 1980 Kirby Tradition is. Second, it's made of plastic, and when you have a cranky wife who wants a light vacuum...let's just say sending this down the stairs with frustration wasn't kind to it. It broke a bunch of shit including the wheels, the lock mechanism for the handle, and of course shattered the lightbulb. So no more headlight either. Then it started clogging more frequently, probably from the toss down the stairs. Even despite all it's pluses, it's still a modern consumer device made out of 99% plastic! So yeah, that really sucked.

In the end, her mom ordered us the vacuum below as the house didn't get vacuumed for 3-4 weeks after that, and I was getting bitchy about it. So outta' the fry pan....into the fire!

First off, this is CHEAP, CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP CHAEAP! Maybe I shouldn't be surprised for the price, but I consider it not a good sign when simply pushing the power button with my foot makes the wheels have negative camber like a drift car! I felt like I was using a dollar store toy from my childhood to vacuum our house, and after awhile, it did about as good a job as a dollar store toy would too. I've seen toy lawn mowers as a kid that cut grass more than this vacuums carpet.

The attachments constantly got knocked off of it when I was using it, and it wasn't exactly comfortable for someone as tall as me. my wife LOVED it, but I don't think she realizes how poorly it was sucking things off the carpet.

Enter Kirby. EVERY 80's kid knows Kirby from that traumatizing existential dread classic made by a Disney subcontractor! The cranky ol' vacuum cleaner (based loosely on a Kirby Sanitronic 80) - honestly, if I were to do a mental assessment, I probably AM Kirby in my adult life! And every time I go to the thrift, there seemed to be a bunch of vintage Kirby vacuums turning up. I passed on several over the years, and wondered if I should regret it - and now I do. Man did I miss out. After all, I still have the Oreck above, and that's a better shop vac than some literal freakin' "Shop Vacs" my crazy cat lady mom had as a kid!

The Kirby Tradition measures up to modern Vacuum Cleaners as it's a monsterous beast pulling a 121CFM (Cubic Feet Per Minute) which which higher than the average modern Warehouse store Upright which is between 50 and 100+ CFM. Most of them, are just bloody PATHETIC. It even outdoes the Pet Cyclonic.

On Carpet it does really really well, even despite the fact my brush bar just passes Kirby's standards for thevacuum 1/8" of brush left. I need to buy a new one eventually, but it's not an urgent need. For something to not get sucked into the Kirby, it either needs to be really stuck to the carpet, or it is something big enough to be rejected by the brush bar upon input. Strangely, it seems this Cars Panorama record era Vacuum cleaner has a form of bobby pin rejection, because my wife leaves em' all over the house, and most vacuums we've had make a ton of nasty clunks and clicks and even bend and twist em....the Kirby spits em out like it's eating a hunted waterfowl and is spitting the buckshot out. Remember that scene from bTTF III?

On hardwood floors, even with the brush going, it'll rip everything off the floor. My wife's Avacado that somehow finds it's way onto the floors is cleanly scraped off and somehow leaves no residue on it's way into the Sani-Emptor. Cat food is easy, It's quite surprising this thing is almost as good as any Shop Vac my mom iwht 20-something cats had in the 1990's.

It's also not terribly loud nor that heavy. My Pet Cyclonic was heavier, and louder. This thing makes less noise than my Oreck XL. I don't even have to turn it off to change floor types, just like the Pet Cyclonic, since I don't have to turn the brush bar off, and because that foot height adjustment is a very conveneient way to change the cleaning height to what works best whether I'm sucking dirt and scraping shit with the brush bar off the kitchen floor, or revitalizing trampled carpet with the brush bar and planned strokes. You can turn the belt off, but you DO have to turn it off unlike the Pet Cyclonic, and then twist the square "Magic Finger/Observation Window" on the front clockwise to lift the belt off the motor.

The only negatives...well, first, it does have a full vat of attachments, but no hose. And the hose system on the Kirby Tradition requires using the Magic Finger to lift the belt, and unclip the whole schnoz of the beast off, to put on what looks like a Kirby version of a facemask for the machine to plug a hose into. So that means turning it off, turning the belt, unlatching the schnoz of the device, and then latching on a little plastic thing. I'm wondering if it's even worth it.

This unit came with the legacy "Shakeout Bag" method. Sort of a cloth precursor to the modern "Bagless" uprights we see all over today. Instead of detaching a plastic canister and flipping the bottom open, you literally shake the bag upon turning the vacuum off, and then unzip a small slot in the side, and use a scraper inside the scrape any detrus down the sides of the bag, into the Sani-Emptor below. This is a messy process that involves me taking the vacuum out to the garage. Apparently I'll need to take it off again (which I've already done and is a real PAIN to do), and turn it inside out to fully clean it. There was a bagged option using Kirby Type 1 Bags, but you lose a lot of CFM and it doesn't work as well as the other option, a custom HEPA Modification you can make that has higher CFM and filters the air better). Right now when I use it, my apartment smells like an old Church or house from the 1980's....a smell I don't mind.

The Kirby Company, I've been told, is a big aggressive about upsell, so I don't bother contacting them for the most part. The Tradition still runs like new and works great, parts are available on E-bay, I have capable hands, and I hear our local place, Kirbyland, doesn't have a lot of parts in stock anyway. The last thing I need is someone trying to push me into an appointment for the Availir when I'm happy with a mean vintage Tradition.