Dyson DC11 Telescope Review

Overall Rating

Bagless and transparent 'dust' collector.

Anything bigger than a peanut gets stuck when trying to empty collector.

Before I give my opinion on this Dyson DC11, I just want to share my purchasing experience because I believe that the way a company does business can reflect on the product and certainly on the purchasing decision itself, even if it's just so that you don't fall for the same particular case of false advertising as I did. Although I bought this vacuum online in Spain, a company like Dyson should still uphold a certain standard no matter where they do business.

When I bought my DC11, Dyson were running a 30 day money back guarantee campaign, which is why I had piece of mind when I bought it, or so I thought because after tying the DC11 just once and finding that this particular model didn't suit me, Dyson (Spain) reneged on their offer and refused my refund, although I just wanted to exchange it for an upright model. They reneged on the deal because I didn't buy it from Spain's leading retailer (ElCorteIngl s), even though every retailer that sold Dyson products at the time used this advertised offer to sell the products. This would be like saying to someone in the UK that because you didn't buy the Dyson at Tesco they wouldn't honour the deal. And because Dyson (Spain) took nearly 3 weeks to eventually inform me of this I didn't have the opportunity to return it to Redcoon (where I purchased it), who have a 7 day return policy.

Anyhow, I thought that I had to mention my experience with Dyson, I just want to say also that I'm not using this review to 'get back' at Dyson, I usually do this to companies by not buying from them again. And now on to the vacuum unit itself:

It does offer good suction and the collector is easy to remove from the unit BUT, these are the things that stop me from recommending this vacuum to anyone (unless it was sold for a third of it's current price);

The extension pole can be a little tricky to catch first go.
Anything bigger than a peanut will get stuck in the collector when it comes time to emptying it; about 90% of the time I have ended up banging the collector to loosen dirt, I caused a couple of small cracks because of this, which is why I now use(d) a stick or coat hanger to force, even clumps of animal hair and small pieces of paper out. But in all fairness to Dyson, they do call it a 'dust' (and not rubbish) collector.
The ON/OFF button and the cord rewind are identical, I can see some people getting these confused.
I found the accessory for getting under furniture to not be very effective, it's as if more thought was put in to making it fit the unit snugly than doing it's intended job properly.

Overall this vacuum is just a little bulky and awkward for my liking, but I was impressed with the quality of the materials used and the way they fit together. Overall though I don't think it's worth the money.

I have just purchased a Delonghi/Triplo Simac EVT100, and even though I can't give a review on it just yet, I can say that from first impressions and seeing as it's cheaper than the Dyson, is of a similar size and can steam clean as well as vacuum, I would recommend this (or a similar product) to people looking for a value for a money floor cleaner.