Bought this for my daughter, who lives in a condo with a tall wooden staircase with her dog, who sheds a lot. The big, clunky Hoover was just too much to manage. She loves this Dyson!NowFollow-up - she just tried to empty the dirt collector for the first time and the release button is completely stuck! Now we have to wait for the electronics company to contact us. Very disappointed!Update: Contacted Dyson 3 weeks ago and read the serial number to the representative, who said he would order an exchange, since the part could not be detached for the rest. Made a follow-up call. Turns out it was a refurbished unit, though the Amazon site says "new"...Dyson put me on hold numerous times trying to find out why we haven't received the replacement. It is out of stock and I'm being told it was a V-10, not the V-8 I paid for and I believed we had received. It is possible the rep wrote the wrong serial down that I had read from the machine. They say they are sending a different V-10 refurbished one that is comparable. It had better be, since I paid $410 for this! VERY UPSET AND UNHAPPY ABOUT THIS.Love this itemI purchased a V8 animal titanium two years ago and it worked fine, until last week—five days after the warranty expired. Now the battery won’t even last more than two minutes on max suction mode (it’s supposed to last 7). When I put it on the charger, it magically charges back up in less than five minutes. When I contacted Dyson about the issue they told me that because my warranty expired there was “nothing we can do.” No kind of consideration that their battery failed five days after expiration of the warranty. I’m left with a $400 machine that is going to cost me another $127 to get it working again. I’m a student. I don’t have money to just throw around. This company doesn’t care about their customers, nor the quality of its products. Do not buy.