Dyson Launches New 'Supersonic' Hair Dryer To Revolutionize Hair Care (nbcnews.com) 228
An anonymous reader writes: Dyson has a launched a hair dryer with a design language similar to that of its bladeless fans. The $399 hair dryer is four years in the making, involving 103 engineers, over 1,000 miles of test hair, and a $71 million investment -- the Dyson Supersonic is being touted as "the hairdryer rethought" by its inventor Sir James Dyson. "We realized that hair dryers can cause extreme heat damage to hair," said Dyson in a press release. "So I challenged Dyson engineers to really understand the science of hair and develop our version of a hair dryer, which we think solves these problems." The hair dryer can be reserved online and will be sold exclusively at Sephora for $399 this fall.
A towel and the Sun (Score:5, Funny)
I just saved you 400 dollars.
Re:A towel and the Sun (Score:5, Informative)
People with short hair (i.e. most guys) tend to discount the utility of a hair dryer, but if you or your significant other has long hair, you know it's not really optional. Long hair takes an annoyingly long time to dry on its own, even after using a towel. That being said, the $15 model seemed to work just fine for its intended purpose.
Also, what is this "sun" you speak of? I live in Seattle, you insensitive clod.
Re:A towel and the Sun (Score:5, Funny)
You might want to consider moving to a location suitable for human habitation.
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Here in Minnesota we use hair dryers to stay warm!
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He did say "suitable for human habitation," not "Minnesota."
Re:A towel and the Sun (Score:5, Informative)
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I have a portable de-humidifier in the washroom. I told my wife it was to prevent mold growth, but really it's so I can stand over it after a shower and dry my naughty bits whilst shaving.
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If I had much hair I might be tempted by this. Dyson stuff is expensive, but it lasts and it is often way, way better than the competition. I have one of their cordless stick vacuum cleaners and cleans better than any other vacuum I have ever seen. It's made a massive difference to my allergies, and I upgraded from a top of the range Miele and an older Dyson cylinder.
Like everything, you have to evaluate it based on utility * (cost / expected lifespan). For me the price of breathing easily made the vacuum a
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I am a guy, I have long hair and I use a hairdryer only for opening cellphones that are glued together. Yes, the hair takes a few hours to dry but the results are much better.
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Also, what is this "sun" you speak of? I live in Seattle, you insensitive clod.
Seattle, you mean a tropical paradise.
Signed,
A Londoner.
Re: A towel and the Sun (Score:2, Interesting)
move to finland. having the hair freeze on the way to school sucked biiig time.
AFAIK not really suitable for curly hair either (Score:3)
Hair dryers also tend to wreak havoc on and are generally not recommended for curly hair. Some people use diffusers but even these mess up curly hair. I noticed none of the models in the videos had curly locks.
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I'm a long hair guy...
I rarely use the hair dryer because heat and if you put it on high wind damage... if I do use a hair dryer I also use a heat protecting leaving in conditioner like Matrix Biolage blue agave which is kind of expensive but most of the time I use a turbie twist which is just a towel designed to make it easy to wrap your hair.
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Slashdot. Tech, politics, commentary.
Personal beauty products.
Oh, how far this site has fallen.......
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I know - $400 for a hair dryer?
They also make these incredibly expensive room fans. $400+ for a Fan!!! a Fan!! that blows air on you.
Boy they sure are experts at moving air around... and now they can blow Hot Air too !!!
Did have one question on this. (Score:2)
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When testing hair dryers why do you use miles of hair vs pounds of hair?
I prefer my products to be measured in kilojoules of marketing.
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The only unit I respect is kiloton per fortnight.
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When testing hair dryers why do you use miles of hair vs pounds of hair?
Because the conversion to Library of Congresses of hair is a bit tricky.
Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Funny)
Please do not put your dick into the Dyson Supersonic.
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Proper hairdryer -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Be real -- https://youtu.be/PFZ39nQ_k90?t... [youtu.be]
Supersonic? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I suppose blowing all your hair off of your head does simplify styling...
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It seems like supersonic should be the right word in this case. You have sub-sonic for sounds that are too low frequency to be audible, so the opposite should be super-sonic for things too high pitch to hear. The Dyson motor in this thing is designed to produce most of its noise above the threshold of human hearing, so it seems quiet.
Hopefully they tested it with dogs and cats too...
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I wonder if it might attract curious bats?
One hopes it doesn't drive dogs to attack it. I suppose we'll see.
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I think we already have ultrasonic for that. So by the same token subsonic shoud be infrasonic. There again we do have infrastructure and superstructure.
I give in.
Does it lose suction over time? (Score:2)
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And how do you need 103 engineers for a hair dryer? I've done medium large projects for satellites with a dozen or so people and lots of computers and machines with blinky lights.
Ask yourself, what's harder: designing or satellite or creating a Donald Trump do? Do an FMEA analysis on both systems, and 103 engineers suddenly don't seem too many for the latter.
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1 engineer to copy some patent.
2 engineers to reverse engineer the design.
100 engineers to make subtle changes so it can be re-patented as a Dyson "invention"
Re:Does it lose suction over time? (Score:4, Informative)
And how do you need 103 engineers for a hair dryer? I've done medium large projects for satellites with a dozen or so people and lots of computers and machines with blinky lights.
Two questions, how different from your satellite are other, previous satellites? And second question, how many are you making?
The the last number is "fucktons" or the metric equivalent (fucktonnes?), then that can eat up a lot of engineers. As I've revcently discovered design for manufacture is *HARD*, harder IME than weight shaving. Once you've got your basic design up and running and working, you then need to go over it again and again and again ad nauseum so that it (a) looks cool, (b) is as cheap as possible to manufacture as possible and (c) lasts long enough.
Those can eat up aprbitarily large amounts of time.
Also you're trying to volume source the cheapest servicable stuff you can find for motors and things, whereas I assume for a satellite, you're using small volumes of high quality stuff from onlt the mose reputable manufacturers. Dealing with that can also add lots of time and manpower requirements because it frankly often doesn't meet the specs (if it even has any beyond some estimated guesses of the simplest performance parameters), and can require a lot of iteration to get right.
Just because consumer products are cheap to make and often quite simple, don't dismiss them as easy to design. Getting them to be that cheap and simple is actually rather hard.
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The the last number is "fucktons" or the metric equivalent (fucktonnes?),
Just for everyone playing along at home, a metric fuckton is approximately 2.3 imperial shitloads (British) or 3.1 fucktonnes (US Customary).
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Hint: do you remember the joke about how many engineers does it take to replace a light bulb ?
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Sure they do. That's want 63 of the engineers are working on.
1000's of miles of test hair? (Score:2)
Slashvertisement? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I doubt very many /.ers are stupid enough to run out and buy a Dyson... ...and it's a crowd that likely isn't very Dyson(i.e. gimmick) friendly.
If it's a /.vertisement, it's money poorly spent.
Dyson = solving created problems (Score:3)
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A friggin' $400 hair dryer? Wow, just wow.
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Most of their vacuums are pretty good. In fact, a huge step up from the non-Dyson models that we used to own. We now have two Dyson vacuums, a bigger conventional model, and the small battery-powered one. The latter gets used several times a day. Quite happy with that; I never before had even seen a battery powered vacuum that wasn't just a bad joke.
As for the hand dryer. Yeah, I agree with you. It's a solution in search of a problem. It just slings bacteria all over the place and doesn't even work all that
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I much prefer paper towels. So much more sanitary and easier to use.
Just make sure you are using them the right way [ted.com].
I bet it works better ... (Score:5, Funny)
... if you use Monster (TM) power cables.
Aiming for the wrong end. (Score:3)
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Toto already make something like that. It has air drying built in, although it's not very powerful. It has a deodorizer as well so it doesn't blow the smell back out into the room.
I wish they sold more of their products in the west. Panasonic make a toilet that you put detergent in and it disinfects itself after every use, but somehow still saves water. The resulting foam in the little pool of water left in the bowl then reduces splash-back.
Hurry up, Dyson. (Score:5, Funny)
A bit more thought and passion in products please (Score:5, Insightful)
I've tried to stick to the principle of not buying the cheapest option as it a) never lasts b) does a piss poor job
There's also the c) can be dangerous
Hair dryers are a good example of dangerous. I know of a couple of homes that have burned to the ground due to a cheap hair dryer.
I recently bought another blender for making soups, curry sauces etc. The previous one I had melted and smoked in front of me. It was cheap.
While searching online for a replacement I discovered an alarming large number food blenders smoking or bursting into flames in product reviews.
So I found one which cost 10x what I paid for my previous one and it's superb. It works so much better, it's quiet, it looks beautiful and I'm sure it'll last for years.
Why is it when someone actually goes to extreme lengths to try and design the best possible product instead of trying to make the cheapest product possible with no effort to make it any good, reliable or safe everyone puts them down?
I don't get it?
I wouldn't buy Dyson's, or anyone else's, hairdryer but I admire him for being a self made man who got there because of his innovation and design.
I'm willing to pay extra for a well designed product that has had a bit of thought and passion put into it.
that is not always true (Score:2)
Expensive does NOT always mean better. Though yes, very often you get what you pay for.
Case in point. Dyson vacuum cleaners. Even though they are significantly more expensive than other brands in the US, they are crap. The hard plastics used, especially at the handle for the dirt trap break after a comparatively short amount of time. Admittedly, I am only going by anecdotal evidence here. My sister went through three in two years, though she still likes it when it's working.
I had one for about two weeks and
Re:that is not always true (Score:4, Interesting)
Miele Vacuums in Germany are power hogs and need 2200W. That's fine, as German power outlets are 240V at 13A. You can draw more than 3000W before tripping the breaker. Try doing that on a 110V/15A outlet and the results won't be so pretty.
It's easy to be powerful, if you don't mind wasting a lot of power. But just watch what's happening right now; the EU smartened up to this game and passed new regulations, limiting vacuums to 1600W. All of a sudden, Miele vacuums don't look all that great any more. But Dyson's are awesome, as they have many years of experience maximizing suction power with much lower electrical power needs.
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I can recommend the things, and while I like the idea of bagless, and have worked for an hour with a Dyson upright (ancient model) and was impressed, I never felt convinced enough to part with so much money for a machine that gets very mixed judgement... and they change models so quickly too, you reall
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I can recommend the things, and while I like the idea of bagless, and have worked for an hour with a Dyson upright (ancient model) and was impressed, I never felt convinced enough to part with so much money for a machine that gets very mixed judgement... and they change models so quickly too, you really don't know if the new ones are still as good.
The new ones are just as good. They aren't any better, because they are the same damned thing. They're just making cosmetic changes mostly now because they actually have a working vac. We are still pulling shit out of the carpet that clearly predates our residence in this rental. (The carpet is biblically old.) Take a look at the new ones. They're the same damned thing. That means, luckily, that they are great.
I got mine as a refurb, which brought the price down considerably. Wish I had ponied up the extra
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I just bought a Miele vacuum cleaner. I studied a lot of reviews and found that Dysons have a reputation for being loud. That's what I was trying to get away from. That and the idiotic concept of "bagless". Bagless vacuums are great until you have to empty them. Then they make a mess. I suppose I could take the thing out to the yard, stand upwind of it, place the canister into a trash can, then open it up, but I'd still have to wipe all the dust off the canister before I brought it back into the house.
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Miele Vacuums in Germany are power hogs and need 2200W ... It's easy to be powerful, if you don't mind wasting a lot of power ... the EU smartened up to this game and passed new regulations, limiting vacuums to 1600W. All of a sudden, Miele vacuums don't look all that great any more.
I don't know where you're getting your specs but you should check the Miele website [miele.co.uk]. All their large vacuums range between 800W and 1300W. Dyson doesn't even post their power consumption. If it's such a low power device, why wouldn't they at least mention it?
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That's not how it works. Those 2200W are advertising numbers, which is why the numbers kept creeping up well into the "ridiculous" range. They sounded like a jet taking off and were horribly inefficient to boot. Product design consisted of "stick a bigger motor in and we're done".
The EU regulation forced the manufacturers to start optimizing airflow, and lo and behold, the new 1200 W vacuum cleaners clean just as well as the old 2200 W machines.
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Expensive does NOT always mean better. Though yes, very often you get what you pay for.
But the OP did not say "Expensive == better".
He said he's willing to pay a little bit more for a product that lasts.
Buying the cheap $40 business shoes might seem like a bargain, but they only last six months. Buying a $120 pair is more sensible when they last 2 years. I'm a bit of a tight arse, but I do the same because paying a little bit more for a job done right is cheaper than paying to have the job done again.
Also I tend to put a bit of research into the things I buy, I'm well aware that expe
Re:A bit more thought and passion in products plea (Score:5, Insightful)
20 years ago, most products could be found in a range of price and quality. Now, markets have segmented into two distint price points:
1. Cheapest possible.
2. Luxury brand (typically for the 1%ers).
I believe that this segmentation is related to 2 factors:
a. Vast increase in imports of consumer products (mostly from China).
b. Increasing wealth disparity.
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Why is it when someone actually goes to extreme lengths to try and design the best possible product instead of trying to make the cheapest product possible with no effort to make it any good, reliable or safe everyone puts them down?
We don't. No one gets put down for making genuine amazing products with amazing amounts of research that is "the best possible"
Dyson products are "as different as possible". He throws endless engineering at problems he doesn't understand even if they are well known (cyclonic separation), and the other half of the engineering is put into skirting patents he ripped off from other companies (bladeless fan from Toshiba, jet hand drier from Mitsubishi).
Dyson releases products and my first thought is not "whoah t
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So in other words, doing exactly what the patent system intended inventors to do.
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What pisses me off about Dyson pricing is that the UK gets ripped off compared to other markets, despite Dyson being a UK company. For example, the recently released V6 Mattress cleaner is about 20% cheaper in the US (before 20% sales tax in the UK). I recently bought a V6 Absolute, and it was about £150 cheaper to get it from Amazon.fr than from anywhere in the UK.
Re:A bit more thought and passion in products plea (Score:4, Funny)
I even cooked the bacon without my shirt on too (put it in the oven at 375 about 15-20min until it's golden brown, stays straight, no splattering).
I too appreciate when my shirts stay straight and have no splatters on them, but I think if you just bought your shirts in golden brown colour to begin with you could bake them for just one minute, and they'd still come out toasty warm.
Yaz
Airblades are horrible! (Score:2)
You know what is the worst? When you are in a public bathroom and have to use a Dyson Airblade Hand Dryer [wikipedia.org], because your hands inevitably end up touching the yellow part where everyone else's hands have inevitably ended up touching, yuck, and besides the thing never seems to dry your hands fully.
You know what is the best? The XLERATOR [exceldryer.com] which is like putting your hands around the back end of a jet engine, totally dry in under 10 seconds.
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Now I want to go to the mall tomorrow to use the restroom just to try it!
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I suspect you're using it wrong. You stick your hands in at the *sides* and lift them out once.
There's no room for me to do that. I can only put my hands about 80% of the way into the Dyson airblade before they are in the fetid water which pools inside of it. Apparently, the brits have teeny tiny little child hands.
James Dyson is not Clive Sinclair (Score:4, Insightful)
Dyson's designs are only revolutionary from the manufacturer's point of view. I own one of his designs from the core vacuum product line; from a user standpoint it's VERY ineffective and irritating to use. Never again, for me. From the manufacturer's POV, however, the modular construction is both cheaper to produce and also cheaper to maintain and service.
Dyson's revolutionary designs benefit Dyson. Period. Don't be fooled by the marketing hype that turns design flaws from the user perspective into false benefits. That ability to portray a sow's ear as a silk purse is Dyson's real revolutionary accomplishment.
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I have a Miele C3 and it is fantastic. Quiet, powerful, and as you said, no cloud of duct when I empty it. It doesn't even scare the cats.
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May I ask what is revolutionary about a cyclone he copied from his shop-vac, a fan he copied from Toshiba, and a hand-drier he copied from Mitsubishi?
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Did I somehow still manage to leave you with the impression that I'm a fan of Dyson's (lack of) innovation? My bad.
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Their blade hand dryer dries your hands, which is more than most of those whoosy blowers.
Their blade hand dryer breeds bacteria, and then blows it onto your hands. It also doesn't accomodate anyone with hands larger than a child's. It's garbage.
Their vacuum cleaner removed the bag, today I use a Samsung bagless and its good (and thanks to Dyson its bagless).
Bagless vacs predate Dyson by decades, so no. That's not thanks to Dyson.
If their vacuum cleaner wasn't good, then everyone wouldn't have copied them, and I wouldn't have a nice bagless Samsung to use?
Their vac is good, and being bagless is cool, but Dyson did not invent that, so stop riding the dick before commenting.
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I hope you never need to use that gods-damned accordion hose at any distance past one foot. You'll acquire a very unwanted groupie. I also hope you don't have a bed or other furniture with a low undercarriage that demands cleaning underneath with an actual motorized brush-head... and by "low" I mean anything that the huge ball and frame of these vacuums can't fit under. I don't even have a ball model and there is NO furniture under which I can vacuum for cat fur with it. The "turbo" suction-driven attac
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That might be an apt comparison.
I wonder how much Dyson paid for this ad (Score:2)
This isn't regurgitated news. They're putting a fucking ad right in there as a not-a-news story.
Dyson sphere (Score:2)
They should have employed those 103 engineers to figure out how to build an impenetrable concrete bubble around Dyson's corporate headquarters in order to save humanity from such egregious feats of idiocy.
News for Merds. (Score:2)
Stuff that Natters.
See what I did there?
For the first time ever, (Score:2)
I just went to the Firehose and modded as 'binspam', (many, many times), a story that has already been accepted, namely the one in which I am currently posting a comment. Fuck Slashvertisements.
It won't revolutionize anything (Score:2)
Big numbers (Score:2)
They should have given that in meters, so it sounds bigger. So since this smells of 'trying hard to make numbers sound big' , how much hair length does a human have?
If you take 100,000 hairs and 15cm it adds up to 15km or 10 miles. So they tested 100 heads. Or the same head 100 times. I wouldn't rank that under 'more than you'd expect'.
Gold plating on a dump truck (Score:2)
Dyson's true discoveries are to find people predilected to believe silly things and spend lots of money on fads. He claims his vacuum cleaners produce more "suction". The vacuum of any air-moving machine is limited by the natural air pressure, not by a fancy impeller design. It's like making an empty bottle more "empty". My grandma's Kirby from the 1950s produced just as much "suction" as a Dyson, and it had a metal housing that you could hit with a cannonball with no dent.
Now Dyson would have us believe th
Dyson reminds me of Carver (Score:2)
Carver used to make audio products back in the 80s and 90s. Their big thing was called "magnetic field amplifiers". They would churn out "white papers" on their technology and people would buy their stuff. None of it ever lasted long and they went out of business, several times, IRIC.
Carver's big "breakthrough" was, like Dyson, in marketing, not engineering.
Supersonic hair dryer (Score:2)
Hair dryer is very important (Score:2)
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Re:Aren't Supersonic Things a Bit Loud? (Score:5, Funny)
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I'd never heard of his "bladeless fans" so I followed the link. In fact his fan does have blades; it is just that they are hidden in a duct. Pity someone does not do him under the [UK] Trade Description Act.
Dyson is a PoS personally - my wife has dealt with him on the phone (her company supplies his with parts) and he really is quite different from his cuddly public image.
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Re: So Dyson... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently they have a "thing" for household devices that either suck or blow
His first "invention" was a wheelbarrow with a ball on a spindle instead of a wheel, the "Ballbarrow". [He claimed that it could go round corners better because it could be tilted over - never mind that the rounded tyre of a traditional barrow already allows it]. He continues this ball theme with his vacuum cleaners. His thing is about balls rather than sucking.
I've just checked his history on Wikipedia. His college education was in art, not engineering. That explains a lot, including the pseudo-technical Lego-coloured plastic protrusions on his shit.
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They're not even better.
I had a Dyson vacuum cleaner for about a week before I threw it in the trash. Bagless vacuum cleaners are CRAP.
Their bladeless fans are noisy as hell.
etc. etc.
All design and no function. Perfect for hipsters.
Re: So Dyson... (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a Dyson vacuum cleaner for about a week before I threw it in the trash. Bagless vacuum cleaners are CRAP.
Around 1960 my mother had an original Hoover Junior with just a cloth bag. When you emptied it, shaking it over the dustbin (US trashcan) you were lucky if half the crap inside didn't end up over yourself, especially if there was a bit of wind about. Emptying it was my job.
Then disposable paper bags for cleaners were invented. It was brilliant! No more shaking and beating the cloth bag and getting covered in it.
Then Dyson comes along and uninvents the disposable bag, and people lap it up, Dyson becomes a folk hero. WTF?
Anyway, what's the point of a cleaner with a transparent dirt container? When I use a vacuum cleaner it is because I don't want to see it any more, not to exhibit it in a "glass" case.
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The cloth bag got you dirty because most of the material stuck to the bag.
On the Bagless systems it is contained in a hard plastic shell. That slides out without the need of a bunch of shaking.
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Anyway, what's the point of a cleaner with a transparent dirt container?
The vac only works correctly up until the container is full to the line. They make it transparent so that you can clearly see how full it is, and so that you can see if you've vac'd up anything important and/or valuable. When you're done using it, you can empty it if you don't want to look at the dirt.
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"I had a Dyson vacuum cleaner for about a week before I threw it in the trash."
Sounds rather wasteful. Perhaps you should have returned it to the store it should be under warranty. There are the occasional faulty product.
Or you could had sold it with eBay or Craigslist?
I have one and no complains. It is the longest lasting vacuum that I owned so far.
Re: So Dyson... (Score:2)
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Re: Dyson is crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I have a dyson and it disassembles fully. I was also provided with an itemised parts list and order form to buy each replacement part seperately. Look, I understand from reading the comments on this story that US people dont like dyson. At least try to make an effort at reality, though. Basically all I see is the usual redneck xenophobic shtick.
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Also, if you've ever used a Rainbow vac you'd know they are shit. They are bagless and filterless, but they are full of water which means they're harder to deal with overall than a Dyson. They also don't get the air as clean as a Dyson with a HEPA filter!