After our dog chewed up our old Fantom Fury vac (which had served us well since the mid 90's), we decided it was time to replace it (though it still worked).

The old Fantom vacs utilized James Dyson's revolutionary Dual Cyclonic vacuum system (which I believe the Canadian company had an exclusive license for North American sales). It was an amazing vacuum, a tough workhorse that picked up everything we could through at it (we have a dog and 3 cats). It was 100% trouble free throughout its 8 year life never needing a belt or any other part.

While I don't follow vac technology closely I had noticed that the Fantom Company seemed to vanish a couple years back. Because of this, I was surprised to see one on the shelf at our local Target store. I'd been eyeing the $400 Dyson but at $200 less the Fantom Twister seemed like a good deal (especially since I was laboring under the false impression that it was a dual cyclonic vacuum) so we bought it.

Big mistake, out of the box it looked nice and I liked the headlight and hose and accessories which were similar to my old Fantom. What wasn't similar was the suction. It is NOT a dual cyclonic (which maintains constant stump pulling suction regardless of how full the bag is) but rather just another lame "bagless" vacuum that starts loosing suction as soon as the filter element begins to accumulate In the case of the Twister this starts to happen when the shroud that wraps around the filter unit begins to accumulate debris. In our house this took just a few passes. Suction went downhill from there. After thoroughly cleaning the filter and shroud I gave it another try. Again after a few passes the suction began to drop, after doing two rooms it was basically useless and needed to be cleaned again. The final straw was when the belt snapped after 4 uses.

We dug up the receipt and took it back for a refund. Then we bought a Dyson DC07 which is bar none the best vacuum on earth. It has amazing power which is consistent no matter how much junk is in the bin. We went over the area that we had just vacuumed with the Fantom (before the belt broke) and were amazed with how much the Dyson picked up.

It's intuitive and easy to use. The unit is perfectly balanced which makes vacuuming a breeze. The accesories are well thought out and easy to store. Unlike the old Fantom, the Dyson works quite well on the hard wood floors in the kitchen (you couldn't turn off the carpet brush on the old one so it tended to shoot debris away from the vacuum). Both my wife and I love this amazing machine, it does a phenomanel job and it even looks cool!

Don't waste your money on a "bagless" vacuum, their filters clog up just like the old bags did. The Dyson is definitely worth the money. I expect that we'll have it last at least as long as the old one which went for almost a decade and only started having problems after being mauled by our dog!



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 390