Back in late 2013 I purchased a Dyson DC56 Hard, a holy alliance of a Dyson handheld and a Swiffer that was a dream for someone with all wood and no rugs. I’ll skip extolling the virtues of the Hard, because it’s discontinued, and it died.
I phoned Dyson to report the death, and after confirming which LEDs were lighting up and which weren’t, they sent me a replacement motor, free of charge, and quickly. This did not fix the problem, so they sent me a replacement battery free of charge. Still nothing.
This was a problem, because the Hard was discontinued, so there were no new Hards to send, and no successors to the Hard that used Dyson’s take on Swiffer sheets. In fact, the only vacuum Dyson still made that was specifically for hard floors was the Dyson V6 Absolute, which retailed for more than three times what I paid for the Hard. They sent me a new Absolute, for free, and paid for the shipping to send the pile of Hard parts back to their warehouse.
The distinguishing feature of the Absolute, for me anyway, is the soft roller head that’s designed specifically to get all the dust and debris off hard floors. Of course, the Absolute includes multiple other heads, including one for carpets, one for cars, the insanely useful wall-mounted charging station, and HEPA filtration.
The Absolute is a joy to look at and to use in all its configurations.
Dyson vacuums took three of the top five spots in our user voting, with the DC44, which shares many of the features of the Absolute, taking 4th place.