More puff than suck

I brought the Stihl SHE 71 for a discounted price from my local dealer which was a good start. I got it home to test on my decking (5x4m) to remove the bamboo leaves across the deck.

After assembly, straight forward , I used the ' blow' function. This is very good and I was more than happy with this function. Next, it was swap over to the 'suck' function. This was disappointing. Yes it picked up the leaves but not as good as I hoped. Perhaps my expections were too high?

In conclusion, as a blower, it's A1 and I would say buy it! The suck function is disappointing and a facility I don,t think I will use much. I did buy this mainly as a blower to help quickly clear hedge cutter etc and for this , I am happy.