Thinking twice about the Dirt Devil Dash Upright Vacuum

Hi. I'm Katie Pilkington for CNET, and I'm standing next to the Dirt Devil Dash Upright Vacuum. This is a $119 vacuum, which makes it pretty budget-friendly. But I would caution you from getting too excited about that right off the bat because unfortunately, it doesn't really work as well as I would like for it to. And I'm finding the more vacuums I test that to some extent, at least, you get what you pay for, at least in the sub- $200 category. There are better vacuums that will only set you back about $50 more. And when you're looking at an appliance that will easily be in your house for nearly a decade, if ever these are correct, spending that extra $50 isn't a terrible investment. If, however, you do have your heart set on the Dirt Devil and you like this model, there are some nice features, performance aside, that you may appreciate-- such as the wand, which has a handle that's integrated into it, that then nests inside the vacuum itself. The wand also has an extension so that you can use it without bending over with this dirt vacuum and sweeping pad that kind of works like a Swiffer. There's the vacuum portion on the front that will pick up debris, and then, the microfiber pad that's totally washable in the machine follows along after and picks up anything that it leaves behind. This did work really well, and I appreciated that. Unfortunately, it's not really enough of a performance boost to make this vacuum worth it, especially when you could look at a model like the $179 Bissell PowerGlide Deluxe Pet Vacuum, which outperformed this one significantly. So, if you are looking in that sub-$200 category-- and I definitely understand that being a budgetary concern-- there are better models like that Bissell or the Eureka AS1104A, that would be a better use of your money. For CNET, I'm Katie Pilkington.