Dirt Devil UD30010 Featherlite Bagged Upright

If I could give it 10 stars I would!!! We've only had it a few days but oh how I love it already!!We don't have much carpet in our house so you can imagine how dirty our rugs get. We to have a newly crawling 6 month old ruling over our home. As he enjoys picking at the tiniest bits on the floor and putting them in his mouth we try to keep up with the floor a few times a day. To his delight as well, as he thoroughly enjoys the sound of vacuums.So, the bags are easy to change. I had to check it out before I used it, so when the time came I wouldn't be a fumbling idiot trying to get a full bag out. Can't have my tiny boss seeing me be ineffective with my time and efforts!Noise. Yes. It's a vacuum. It makes vacuum noises. I don't think it's particularly loud as I can still hear my boss' squeals of joy and laughter over the sound of the vacuum.Effectiveness. As I said we have a 6 month old in the house that has mastered crawling and using his tiny little fingers as pinchers to snag the tiniest of bits off the floor to deposit into his mouth. We also have a 4 legged assistant boss of the house, and she sheds quite a bit, all year round. There are times when I can't tell between the boss and the assistant boss because they are both covered in the assistant's hair. This vacuum eliminates my confusion for me, removing all the fur from the rug, and the hardwood - yes - folks - it works on hard floors too. VERY much to my delight!!! It has a little clicker thing on top of it to adjust the height for different carpet lengths and for hard floors.It's wider than your average vacuum as well. Which is quite nice. It enables my laziness just a tad - as I don't have to make near as many passes to complete the task.Oh, self propelled. Did I forget to mention that??? The first time I turned this sucker on I'm glad my boss wasn't playing on the rug (as he usually is - since he loves vacuums so much) because this red machine took off on it's own. So please beware, remove all living obstacles from the rug before you turn it on, otherwise you might end up with a traffic pileup on your living room rug.The attachments are nice. I haven't used them yet, but I've used attachments before and these seem pretty on par with what you'd expect. The hose, very nice and stretchy. Before I fully assembled the machine I checked it out and I believe it will ACTUALLY be useful, not like most budget vacuum hoses that are just for show. You know, the ones you try to use and it tips the whole machine over because they aren't stretchy and they are exactly 2.5 feet long so you've got to carry the entire machine above your head with 1 hand in order to use the attachments on anything. Yeah, it's not one of those. I think I could probably vacuum my ceiling fan (if I actually DID that kind of thing) off without struggling.Cord length, another issue with most budget vacuums and not with this one. I can plug it into one plug and vacuum my entire living room without unraveling the entire cord. Fine. Yes. You are right. Our house is tiny. Whatever. Our last budget vacuum would only reach half the room before I had to move the plug!So yeah. Everyone in the house approves of this machine. Especially me, which I suppose is most important since 1. It was my Mother's Day gift and 2. I'm literally the only one who will ever use it.

I loved it. It lasted a while. Very light and easy features.

In order to obtain maximum suction, use Bissell type 7 synthetic cloth bags, there is no designated cloth bag for the U-bag series that can be easily found and purchased. The opening for the bag is 2 1/4", the bissill type 7 is about 1/32" shy of the 2 1/4" diameter on the Bissell type 7 bag, but if you push it down carefully, it will make a snug connection as it's important not to rip the side of the bag while attempting to place a non standard bag inside this dirt devil model UD30010. granted, the bag does not sit near the bottom depending on the length of the cloth type 7 bag you have in use, but having a gap guarantees that even when your bag is nearly full, the bottom of the bag won't block the suction at the bottom so you should have pretty good suction up or until you decide to change the bag.The unit I bought claimed to only have "cosmetic damage" to some "parts", but because I went cheap. now I have to spend another $16 for the missing crevice tool and the missing extension wand, the front panel that covers the bag arrived with the tab that holds it in place, broken off, so I have to use tape to hold the door in place and guess what, the copyright is 2012 and a search for a replacement door comes up out of stock and it's no longer available most likely thanks to the industry going towards fully "bag-less" vacuums.And now I'll explain why I went ahead and bought a new version so I presumably won't get a bunch of missing tools by going cheap like I did before.I need another one because I want something to fall back on once the industry no longer makes bagged vacuums, as long as they still make bags, I'll be able to use this, because there's a big problem with "bag-less" vacuums, the HEPA filter depending on the replacement cost, has become the "bag", anywhere from $30-$80 for a new HEPA filter means every time the dirt cup fills up, you should probably replace the HEPA filter!Because all those pleats in the filter clog up with dust and even if you dump the dust cloud dirt cup, the HEPA filter is still clogged up with dust, oh you can pound on it in a vain attempt to dislodge the dust, but the suction you have before the HEPA filter is clogged up, will never be the same, but with a HEPA bagged vacuum, even if it's not a HEPA vacuum, (like this model) you can approach HEPA level filtering with a cloth bag and best of all when you throw a full bag away, most of the trapped dust/dirt/debris goes away as well and the suction level of a new vacuum pretty much resumes at the level it was when new.Best of all, no dust clouds when dumping out a dust/dirt cup or having to pay exorbitant prices for a bag-less vacuum plus the added cost of a new HEPA filter each time you empty out the dust cloud cup!I've known people who admit to not having changed their dust/dirt cup in over 3 years!Bag-less does not mean what apparently some people think it means, it doesn't mean you use it until the motor dies, then you buy another overpriced piece of "bag-less" junk and no I don't profit from criticizing Bag-less vacuums.I just appears that a lot of people are reluctant to buck the current trend of Bag-less vacuums, so they assume nothing else exists.