Dyson wants its new stick vacuum to replace your upright
Dyson's $550 DC59 Motorhead is an updated version of the $500 DC59 Animal we recently reviewed, but we think there's more to this story.
Dyson's new $550 DC59 Motorhead is designed to tackle different types of cleaning.
Dyson's new $550 DC59 Motorhead cordless stick vacuum is currently available on Amazon and Dyson's online shop and will be making a wider debut on June 15. While it looks very similar to the $500 Dyson DC59 Animal we reviewed earlier this year, this version has a modified nozzle that Dyson claims is 1.5 times more powerful. Dyson goes on to say that the Motorhead performs better than many traditional upright vacuums on both carpet and hardwood floors.
http://www.cnet.com/products/dyson-dc59-animal/
This battery-powered vacuum cleaner weighs 4.96 pounds (the Animal weighs 4.6 pounds), is supposed to run for 24 minutes before needing to charge (the Animal is supposed to run for 26 minutes), and has a motor built into the brush bar designed to improve performance on carpet, an area with which Dyson thinks cordless vacuums struggle, although Dyson says it improves performance on hardwood, too. This "direct-drive" motor is the key difference between the DC59 Motorhead and the DC59 Animal -- a difference significant enough for Dyson to market the Motorhead as a cordless vacuum that can outperform a standard upright.
Like the DC59 Animal, the DC Motorhead comes with a two-year parts-and-labor warranty, a wall-mounted battery charger, and the same button-release dust bin. It also boasts the same modular layout, so you can remove the aluminum wand and add accessories to fit specific tasks (car, upholstery, stairs).
This sounds like convenient timing in light of Hoover's recent announcement of the Air cordless upright -- a vacuum that claims to combine the maneuverability of a lightweight cordless stick model with the cleaning power of an upright. Is Dyson gunning for Hoover with its latest stick-vac-turned-upright or is this just a coincidence? Regardless, we're tracking down review units for a side-by-side comparison.