http://www.dyson.com/store/product.asp?product=DC41-IRSPU
The Dyson Animal DC-41 appears to be a lightweight, awkward, flimsy, plastic, expensive tool compared to the 45 dollar Bissel - at least, that is how it looked initially at Lowes in the lineup of new vaccuums. NOT THE CASE. Although it costs a Brazillion dollars, it is worth every penny. When at home, on carpet, it is a graceful, well-built, bulletproof tool, that TOTALLY SUCKS the sh*t outta the carpet that must have been there since it was installed! The difference in the price is worth seeing the 3 containers of trash it pulled out of just the livingroom carpet AFTER I used my existing vaccuum! BUY ONE TODAY!
****************UPDATE***************
Although this sweeper was awesome in the beginning, it has started to "suck" in a different way. It appears to be akin to a Ferrari - all geeked out and finicky. run over a hair pin, and you'll puncturing the gasket surrounding the mouth of the beater bar. Dyson is good about support, but they wanted me to ship the thing to a service center. I said just please ship me the parts and I would just fix it myself - they did. However, they sent a whole lower section, and I swapped that out successfully. I saved back all the old parts, which is good, 'cause I ran over a throw rug with the thing and broke the motor - and had to grab it out of the old one. If someone took this thing and cast each and every piece out of Magnesium - (might catch on fire, so maybe Aluminum,) then it would be awesome. it now creaks under the weight of itself - I don't like the action - it is too "bendy." Still cleans carpets well, though, I have to admit.
One of the kids dropped the very important spinny thing from their new Cotton Candy maker and it got off center. I used a HF lateral runout gauge and got it to within .018" of perfect. It runs better now than it did out of the box. :-) It is really picky as it runs at a high RPM.
