Eureka 431BX Optima Lightweight Upright Vacuum
by Eureka
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Product Details
Manufacturer: EurekaBrand: Eureka
Edition: Kitchen
Model: 431DX
Color: Thunder Green
Publisher: Eureka
Studio: Eureka
Music Label: Eureka
Product features:
- Lightweight upright vacuum cleaner from Eureka for bare floors, carpets, and furniture
- Offers 8 different height settings and ergonomically correct loop handle for easy management; bag less design
- Roll-brush sucks up debris powered by 12-amp motor; no-tip design enables easy cleaning above ground-level
- Includes many on-board accessories including dust brush, hose wand, and crevice tool; 20-foot retractable power cord
- Vacuum measures 44-1/2 by 15 by 13 inches and weighs 11 pounds; limited 1-year warranty
Tools and Hardware Reviews of Eureka 431BX Optima Lightweight Upright Vacuum
Customer Review: I like it, and I'm a tough customer
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm old enough to remember when vacuums were serious pieces of machinery made completely of metal. Over the years I've watched vacuums become plastic toys, made to be more visually stimulating than anything else. So I guess you could say I had an attitude going into this purchase. I had a sense that all current vacuums were jokes to some extent compared to real vacuums like the Kirby or the Electrolux of the 1960's or the commercial bagged uprights of today.
So you'll be surprised to hear how much I like this vacuum. It has a hose and one attachment and they fit tight to the vacuum and don't flop around. Going from floor to hose suction is fast: You turn a large switch, lift the hose off the top of the vacuum, and bang, you're working. When you're done, you flip the switch, lay the hose over the top of the vacuum, push the end into a holder on the other side, and you're back to doing the floor again. It's fast. Takes about two seconds to switch. It's fast and I like fast. It's got two small crevice and brush tools that fit firmly on the side of the vac. They are right-sized for the machine and they don't get in the way. This is a pet peeve of mine -- vacuums with so many attachments hung on them that you feel like a traveling circus going from room to room. Come on -- I'm not going camping when I get out the vacuum. I can walk back to the closet if I need an attachment. I don't need six different kinds of attachments hanging off the side of my upright.
The dirt cannister -- well, it snaps out and back in pretty easily. You just dump it out. There's a final filter of course that gets dirty fast, and you get to decide how to handle that. I'm sure performance is degraded pretty quickly as that filter gets dirty. I pop it out and blow most of the dirt out of it from the inside using compressed air, but most owners aren't going to have any way of reverse-blowing a small filter. This is where I've never completely understood the advantages of bagless designs -- sure, the coarse, heavier stuff falls to the bottom and you get to see it -- which I have to admit is fun -- but the fine particles of dust which really plug up the pores in a filter, you still have to stop those with something. In a bagged design, you stop them with the entire bag which has a huge surface area. In a bagless, you stop them with a small filter which has nowhere near the surface area of a large bag. So whether or not a bagless is any better (or even as good as) a commercial upright or a conventional Oreck-type bagged vac, I can't say.
I've read the reviews about the vacuum blowing down. It really doesn't blow downwards, although it does blow forward at certain times. The vac discharges air forward in a line perpendicular to its upright tank (or handle) about three inches off the floor. Any time the vacuum handle is tilted backward, the air is blowing upward and forward at an angle, so it's not a problem. When the handle is pushed completely forward so that it's at a right angle to the base -- the position you normally store an upright in -- the air is blowing forwards from a discharge point about three inches off the floor, and in this position it might stir up some dust in front of the vacuum. But under normal conditions, with the handle tilted back, the air blows upwards and has not created any problems for me. Turning off the vacuum before raising it to a fully upright position might solve the dust-stirring problem. Personally I've never experienced any problems with it. The ring handle looks silly but it makes the vacuum easy to use in any position. It's a good idea.
The cord is about 20 feet long which is passable. You wind it around a couple of cleats on the back just like an old Hoover upright. I'm fine with winding. Auto-retracts are nice but when they stop working you have a mess on your hands.
If you turn the Optima upside down and look at the bottom, all you see are countersunk Phillips-head screws. This is the first thing I don't like about the vacuum. I don't know how the roller-brush is driven, but if there's a conventional rubber belt that can break, it's going to be time-consuming to change the belt. Users should be able to change belts without special tools in less than three minutes, which is the standard set by commercial uprights. Nobody wants to fool around with taking out 10 or 12 screws.
Whether or not these clear-canister bagless vacuums are better than (or even as good as) conventional, bagged, metal-bodied commercial Eureka- and Hoover-style uprights, I don't know. But this one has a ton of suction and works great on the hardwood and office-type carpeting I use it on. If it's louder than other uprights I haven't noticed it. If you want a powerful, lightweight, no-nonsense bagless vacuum that's cheap to buy and works well, the Optima will probably work for you. If it falls apart or loses suction as it ages, I'll update that here.
Description of Eureka 431BX Optima Lightweight Upright Vacuum
The new Eureka Optima offers the power of an upright at 1/2 the weight! It also features the ONLY soft-grip looped handle that adjusts to more than 8 positions so any user can find his or her optimal user height. It also ensures the most comfortable grip at any cleaning angle. Optima uses a 12-amp motor for deep cleaning your carpets like a full size upright, but weighs just 11 lbs. It also has an on/off brushroll for cleaning bare floors and on-board tools and a no-tip design for above the floor cleaning. The easy-empty dust cup has the same dust capacity a a full size upright and was designed so you don't touch the filter when emptying the cupUpright Vacuums
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