Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum Reviews
Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
- Compact canister vacuum with Level 3 Root Cyclone technology ensures powerful, consistent suction
- Air-driven TurbineHead brush bar is ideal for cleaning medium and short pile carpets and can be turned off for hard floors.
- Lifetime HEPA filter with Bactisafe screen that traps and kills bacteria, mold and allergens on contact
- Telescopic Wrap System allows the hose and wand to be compressed
- Measures 13.9 x 19.3 x 11.9 inches (HxWxD); 5-year warranty
Hygienic and quick to empty Certified asthma and allergy friendly Lifetime HEPA + Bactisafe
Rating: 
(out of 28 reviews)
List Price: $ 399.00
Price: Too low to display
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Review by D. Timmerman for Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
Rating:
Despite the fact that the Dysons have never been a top pick on Consumer Reports (even though they consistently rate high for brand reliability), I went ahead and purchased the DC23 Turbinehead from Target for $399.
As people often find when purchasing a new vacuum, they pick up a lot of dust and dirt in the carpet that their old vacuum left behind. Mainly because most older vacuums just lose suction even if you replace the filters and maintain all the parts. I find that to be frustrating and disappointing, and that’s mainly one of the reasons that I went with the Dyson — I’m hoping it lives up to their tagline (Never Loses Suction).
The suction on the DC23 is good. The turbine head attachment spins quickly and pulls in cat litter and other little particles in the carpet. I was revolted by the giant thick dust ball I picked up in just one bedroom with the first use. The DC23 does it’s job well. So here’s the run down of what I like and don’t like about this model:
Likes
-Excellent suction, vacuums well. Easily picks up all the cat hair and cat litter I throw at it.
-Small, light weight and portable
-Beautifully designed — it’s shocking to look at this model next to all the Hoovers, Dirt Devils, and Bissells of the world that look like something straight out of the 80′s. Also glad they are moving away from the yellow plastic!
-Easy to empty dust bin, no bags
-Because of the small head, this vacuum can go where most uprights cannot — under beds and tables.
Dislikes
-It’s a little expensive, however, will be well worth it if it actually lasts a long time without losing suction
-Storage is a little flimsy — the hose just sort of hangs out off of the vacuum and the head attachment very loosely attaches to the canister base.
Review by Mike for Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
Rating:
I read a whole bunch of reviews prior to purchasing a DC23 last year because of the price difference, and was taken by the raves about how much the new vac picked up on purchase. The most negative stuff I found related to the quality of plastic used, the awkward wrapping of the hose for storage, maybe a few comments about the head not standing on its own, things I didn’t think would be that big a deal. I paid the premium price based on the marketing of the unit (an engineer doing things properly), thinking that if it didn’t live up to the hype it would’ve been noted online. I expected to be delighted by this vacuum. I wasn’t.
After just about 6 months use:
Plus
- the canister does collect amazing volumes of stuff from floors, and it is cool to observe it doing so, but I note that it is now cleaning up after itself, so to speak, and so it isn’t another brands shortcoming… Still, noteworthy performance.
- I find the power head and floor attachments to be pretty good.
- the power cord is really good at rewinding. No seriously, they got this much better than my last vacuum. Not too strong that it could be dangerous, but strong enough to be efficient. I like it a lot and I hope it works like this for the life of the product.
Overall does vacuuming like a vacuum.
Minus
- I empty the canister every single use, as it looks quite full which is not something I ever worried about previously. I can live with that, but I’ve never seen anyone comment on how awkward emptying the canister into a garbage can is. The entire base kinda flops down and usually releases a cloud of dust no matter how carefully you open it. I live in an apt with a light colored carpet so when I empty it I invariably reinstall the canister and re-vacuum the area I just did to clean up the dust.
- The clear plastic is kinda “cheap”, as some have identified, being more lightweight than my last vacuum, but more troubling to me is that the hose is very lightweight too. I feel I have to be careful not to step on it lest I crush it permanently. This vacuum cost almost twice as much as lesser models with better hardware (@$600 in Canada, compared to @$300 for competitor sale models), so I’m not impressed with this level of quality.
- The power head doesn’t stand on its own, as mentioned, and it turns out that this IS annoying to me. Canister vacuums have done this for more than 20 years that I’ve been aware of, and the dyson engineers dropped or forgot this because they didn’t do analysis of how people would use the product…? Or dropping the handle to the ground was a perverse operational cost/benefit decision of some type? Also the lack of a power switch on the handle turns out to be ergonomically annoying too…
- The hose, as someone else mentioned here, comes off the unit clockwise instead of being centrally located. I imagine this improves the airflow, probably a good thing for suction. But, together with the narrow wheelbase, it is occasionally awkward to manoeuvre (counterclockwise in tight quarters) and sometimes makes the unit tippy compared to my last unit. I actually unhooked the hose from a support so it would manoeuvre better.
- I almost never do the wrapping of the hose on the base for storage as shown in the marketing pics because the hose is so rigid and time consuming to do “proply”. And then if you try and move the unit with the hose wrapped and head on it is quite awkward. PITA ergonomically. I just put it away with the wand compressed (good feature) and power head on and the hose laying everywhere.
- This lead to my next beef, which is I bought some accessories including a “soft brush” to do blinds. Made of the same dyson plastic, functional but not impressive, and I observed at the time that storing these accessories was gonna be a nuisance, as they don’t fit on the unit. They naturally ended up on the floor of my closet and a few times the lightweight hose was left on top of them. The bristles warped from the weight of the hose in a short time and can’t be straightened. Again, reference the cost of these things, and I am disappointed that the nylon in the brush is cheap and insubstantial. I’ve never had accessories do this. I believe they have used the wrong brush material for accessories of this type.
Bottom line: an ok product for its core function, charging too much for the value provided in my view, and not nearly as substantive qualitatively as I would’ve thought a consumer good at this price point would be. I rate it a 3, by which I mean I might not buy another one of this vintage, quality and price; I wouldn’t put it out of the running, but I’d look closely at alternatives. Dyson needs to address the ergonomics and quality values of this product to perform up to its marketing hype.
Review by Ducks Line 916 (a.k.a. Ed C.) for Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
Rating:
If you live in a residence that is predominantly hardwood floor, this is one of the better vacuums – no make, that the best. The turbine-powered airbrush works well for moderately shaggy rugs and floors, and while it is not a cheap canister, it is money well spent. I have never sucked out so much dust. Dyson has always scored a very high mark for design and this is no exception. It is quite easy to dump all the dust out from the bin, and I prefer canister vacuums since they’re easy to put away.
Get the Motorhead if you have fully carpeted floors. For me the Turbinehead is more than enough.
Review by D Town for Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
Rating:
Let me start off this review by saying that I came from using a 20 year old canister Hoover for the last 9 years. I bought it used and it’s served me fairly well over that time. One night about two months ago I was using it and saw that it just wasn’t sucking anything. No blockage. The motor was just plain tired. I needed a new vacuum. I like canister vacs because they’re easier to use attachments with and I can get under furniture with them. Tugging them along can be a pain but, for me, it’s a fair trade off. I was tired of changing bags and Dyson’s bagless design peaked my interest. Also, it’s cleanable filter meant no need to purchase filters in the future as long as I kept up with washing it every three months or so.
First off, I live in a small house with medium pile carpeting, linoleum and hard wood floors. No dogs or cats. My old Hoover had a rotating brush head powered by a motor which was, of course, nice for the carpets. Dyson does make a canister vac with a motor powered rotating head but, at 600 bucks, that was a little too pricey for me. The recent DC 23 Turbinehead, at about 200 bucks less, sounded more attractive. Like the Vacuum title says, its a “turbinehead.” Meaning its powered by air circulation. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t be powerful enough but, as I discovered, my worries were unfounded. The Dyson has plenty of suction to get that head spinning fast enough that it ripped out some of the worn areas of my carpet.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, though. Lets start with unboxing. Upon getting the Dyson home it was time to open up that very attractive packaging. The vac and it’s accessories were easy enough to get out of the box. It did require a little assembly and the very limited instructions weren’t as easy to follow as many would like. Nonetheless, with a little fiddling around I figured out the minimal assembly and was ready to go in about ten minutes. The first thing I noticed was how light the head is. Very easy and manueverable. Note that the head does turn and rotate (as does the hose) which is one nice thing my old Hoover did not. The tube length is adjustable too and being 5’09″ I did need to extend it a little. To turn the brush on and off there is large push/pull button on the head. It is a little annoying to have to bend over to do this but not a deal breaker for me. I found using the Dyson on hard surfaces to be super easy and smooth. The canister does have some weight to it and feels solid despite the large amount of plastic construction. Use on my medium to low pile carpet was fine with just one minor hitch. I sometimes would find that if I pulled the head back too close to my standing position when vacuuming the “push” forward could get snagged for a second. Another minor annoyance that I’ll just have to get used to. Attachements include a crevice tool and a smaller brush for furniture. All attachments use snap lock buttons which is nice and the attachments from my Dyson portable vac work too.
Emptying the Dyson is a simple matter of pressing a button to remove the canister from the vacuum base and pressing another to drop open the bottom for discarding the contents. Now, I live in a fairly rural area so all my emptying (hair, dirt and dust) has been outside but I would say that, if you have a big trash can, it wouldn’t be much of pain to do it inside. Storage is pretty easy since this is a canister. I do agree with the other reviewer that the head’s storage “hook” on the canister is pretty flimsy but works once the canister is stowed away. I wouldn’t trust moving it around though while its on there. I’ll try and give an update in a year to let you know how things are going but, so far, I really like my Dyson DC 23 Canister Vacuum and look forward to many years of use.
Review by PsychDoc for Dyson DC23 TurbineHead Canister Vacuum
Rating:
I just got the unit today and so far I have to say I’m impressed. This thing sucks like a son-of-a-gun. And, after all, at the end of the day, isn’t that what a vacuum cleaner is all about? I know from others that this thing will be sucking just as powerfully five years from now as today. And for me, that’s what seals the deal. I’ve been thru three Kenmore canisters in the past 15 or so years and they all lose suction after a few months. Here’s a quick run-down of my initial impressions…
Pro’s:
*Really pretty unit…very high tech
*Suction that will put all other vacs to shame…and it’s going to stay that way over time
*Very easy to empty
*Never have to worry about having a spare bag
*Lifetime filter that you just have to rinse out every three months or so
*Effective tool storage right on the unit
*Very ingenous telescoping wand…easy to adjust
*Great cord retraction
Cons:
*An “instuction manual” from hell…ridiculously inadequate pictures only…no text…UTTERLY WORTHLESS
*Awkward hose attachment to the front of the unit…pulling the canister around makes you feel like you might damage the connection
*Very awkward control to turn the tubine head on and off…you have to bend down and yank a red disk in and out
*I would have preferred a separate floor head in addition to the turbine head
*The turbine head is terrific on some carpets but can become “suck” on others making it hard to push
*There is no way to effectively wrap the hose around this little unit so you have to put it away completely ‘unfurled’
*I would have preferred the on/off switch to be on the hand grip rather than a button you have to press with your foot
So, while the unit is not an ergonomic delight it does excel at what it’s ultimately designed to do – suck. And it’s nice knowing this comes with a complete five year warranty. Were it not for a few of the nit-picky ergonomic oddities, I would have given this a solid 5 stars.