Black+Decker – Canister Vacuum with Adjustable Multi-Cyclone Suction – TITANIUM GRAY

My nearly 20-year-old, full-size upright vacuum cleaner died some time ago. Since I bought that vac at a time when I lived in a large, fully-carpeted apartment that was all on a single floor, and I now live in a 3-story home with only two rugs in it, I decided to replace the old upright rather than try to fix it. After all, it was difficult lugging the old upright up and down the stairs and getting at around my home’s narrow corners. What I really wanted was a lightweight, compact canister vacuum cleaner with plenty of suction and, hopefully, a quiet motor. I also wanted a vacuum that was easy to use for cleaning my minivan, which was quite a chore with the old upright, even with its hose and tools. Since my wife is asthmatic, it also needed to have a HEPA filter. This Black & Decker model seemed to fit the bill.
As you can see from the unboxing photo, my daughter – 14 years old, 4’11” tall and about 100 pounds as of this writing – was able to lift the cleaner out of its box with ease. The manuals included (in several languages each) are pretty clear, but you may not even need them to do the basic assembly, as it involves just attaching the hose, wand and suitable tool to the end of the wand. The plastic thing at the tool end of the wand is a catch release for the wand extender. The third photo I took (I’m not sure what order the photos will appear in when the review is posted) shows everything you get: the power unit, hose, wand, vacuum head, tools and tool bag. I photographed them together to try to give you an idea of perspective.
The first down-side I noticed with this vacuum cleaner is that there is no onboard storage for the tools. However, the next photo shows my solution to this problem. The tools come in a handy bag, and the bag has a cinch cord that’s long enough to let you loop it around something and pass the bag through the loop. I used that to attach the tool bag to the handle on the main unit. Now my tools shouldn’t get lost.
This vacuum cleaner is, indeed, quite light. My wife (4’10” tall and with joint problems that make it hard for her to lift heavy items) had no trouble with it. My daughter then carried it up to her room for its first test (see photos).
On the way up, we set the vacuum cleaner down on a step, just to see how easy it would be to use this vacuum cleaner to clean a stairway. It actually sits quite nicely, and the stairway in which we checked this has narrower steps than most, so this would seem to be an excellent cleaner to use on stairways, provided the stairway isn’t too long. (Cord length could be an issue for some.)
I was very interested to see how this model would perform on the rug in my daughter’s room, as her rug has a very high pile, almost like an old shag carpet. It seemed to do just fine, although it’s hard to be certain because her rug was fairly new and not very dirty. The pile did prevent her from easily pushing the head forward, but she could pull it backward with little trouble. Reducing the suction made it easier to pull, but still didn’t allow for pushing, so back-and-forth vacuuming wasn’t possible. I ended up turning the suction back to maximum, figuring that this would pull the most dirt out of a high-pile carpet. This model lacks a beater bar, which means it may not be as effective as a fancier model for pulling dirt out of higher-pile carpets. On the other hand, I think one might have to turn the beater bar off for this kind of carpet in order to avoid having it snag the long yarn strands. Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.
I was also pleased to report that this model is rather quiet, for a vacuum cleaner. It was much less noisy than our old upright was, and that upright was one of the quieter models available when we bought it (back in 2002 or so). You probably won’t want to use it when the baby is sleeping — unless your baby likes the sound of vacuum cleaners — but you won’t need ear protection when using it, either. My daughter and I were talking while she was testing it, and we had no trouble hearing each other, despite the fact that she was wearing headphones at the time.
I expect at least decent performance on our other rug, which has a low pile. It would probably do fine on bare floors, too, but we generally stick to brooms and mops for bare floors.
Emptying the dustbin is easy: Unclip the canister from the motor, press the latch that releases the lid for the bin, turn the handle and pull the bin assembly apart. This model is bagless, so it would be best to do this over a garbage can in order to avoid spilling the contents on your nice, clean floor.
I will sum up this review with some pros and cons.
Pros:
– Lightweight
– Compact
– Quiet, for a vacuum cleaner
– Powerful suction
– Tools included
– Perfect size for short people
– Spring-loaded, retractable power cord
– Small enough to rest on stairs while cleaning stairways
– HEPA filter
– Bagless, if you like the convenience of not needing to buy bags
Cons:
– No beater bar.
– Tools are smaller than what’s included with most vacuums
– No onboard tool storage
– Bagless, if someone in your home is allergic to dust
– Limited wand extension length may make this model uncomfortable for tall people to use
– The power unit, hose, wand and tools are all held together by simple friction. That shouldn’t be much of an issue when using the cleaner, but it does allow those parts to disconnect a bit too easily when the cleaner is being carried.
I can’t comment yet on reliability or what it’s like to live with this model for the long term, so I plan to update this review as needed. As of right now, though, it looks like a keeper.

The vacuum power is disproportionate to the size and design of the whole machine/ The hose and accessory feel “plasticky” and in term of maneuverability the oversized wheels makes very clumsy dragging the vacuum around chairs and furnitures.