Oreck Touch Bagless Vacuum Cleaner sucks (in a good way)
Kitchen & Household
Hi, CNET.
I'm Ry Crist, and I'm here with the Oreck Touch Bagless Vacuum.
Now, this is a vacuum from the makers of the classic Oreck XL.
That vacuum was simple, utilitarian, had a big, pale bag, and just kind of ugly design, unapologetic.
And it just did the job.
This is a lot flashier.
It's like Oreck has finally come to the 21st century and made a modern vacuum.
And I'm really glad they did, because this
is a vacuum that we like quite a bit.
At $399, it's definitely a vacuum you're gonna need to spend some money on.
But I think it's gonna be worth it.
The Oreck Touch Bagless Vacuum Cleaner has a lot of great features.
If you look at the canister, it's not a bag.
It's a canister.
That's a big first for Oreck.
They've always been big about the bag.
And now, they're going to a canister.
And this canister is great.
It is really easy to take out, it looks great, it's got nice, sturdy, good-looking translucent blue plastic.
When it's time to empty it out, you just hold it over the trash can
and pull this lever like that, and bottom comes down, everything falls out.
It makes a nice, clean process.
And then, when you're putting it back to the vacuum cleaner, it just snaps back into place with ease.
Another great feature about the Oreck Touch is that it pivots as you turn it.
Now, we've seen this from Dyson vacuums with the ball base.
This doesn't have a ball, but it does have a joint here at the base.
And that allows it to turn independently from the bottom.
And you can turn really nice and tight with that.
It works quite well.
It's very maneuverable.
We love it.
There's also the fact that the power button and the brush
roll button are located right up here on the handle.
And that's great.
You don't need to bend over to turn it on.
You can use it from start to finish and never have to bend over.
So clearly, we are big fans of the way this vacuum was designed.
But the true question might be: how well does it suck stuff up out of your carpets?
And the answer is it does a great job.
It's a very competitive vacuum when you compare it with Dyson vacuums, with the Shark, with the Electrolux.
It could compete with those heavy hitters and do a great job.
And at some cases, it's even the best vacuum.
If you look at our Cheerios test, just a test of a lightweight,
kind of large-sized particle.
The Oreck did great.
It was a really, really effective vacuum.
It picked up almost everything.
It didn't scatter it, it didn't crunch it up too much, and it was easy to use.
The Oreck also did great with pet hair.
It did pretty well with sand and sawdust-- not as well as we would have liked, but none of the vacuums were perfect to sand and sawdust.
You get a lot of that stuff trapped down in the fibers of the carpet.
So overall, this is a vacuum that is designed well, it's maneuverable, it performs well.
And really, we didn't find many serious weak points with it at all to speak
of.
It is a very good machine, a very effective vacuum cleaner.
And I would be thrilled to own one.
I think you can safely spend the money on it and feel confident that you're gonna be getting a quality appliance.
For CNET, I'm Ry Crist.
