HARDSELL

I had my misgivings but I've gained a bit of respect for the Oreck through use.  Mind you, I haven't gone out to buy one for myself but I do think they do the job and fit the bill for many now that there is this new phenomina come to light -- ask anybody to lift more than ten pounds and they look at you as though you're asking them to committ suicide.  (To think I took a liking to a 22-pound LG upright.  What was I thinking?)

While i doing demo duty, many longtime owners walking by would proudly step over just to say the Oreck they'd bought ten or more yeas ago was still running and cleaning well. 

As for the call for high power, it's a myth and not everybody needs it.  Besides which, big power is usually used to compensate for bad design.  All depends on the individual household and the kind of traffic it's subject to.  The needs in a home with kids and lots of company and the requirements of a home where life moves slowly are different.  The Ultimate Handheld didn't seem to lack much and a hurricane isn't neccessary just to clean a bathroom or kitchen floor, go over furniture or do window sills unless we're talking maybe about a houseful of pets. The upright's meant to handle bare floor as well as carpeting and did so well when I was showing them. There shouldn't be any real above the floor cleaning challenges for the handheld to meet but buyers should be made aware that the handheld is meant only for the most general household duty.  We did have have one customer come back to complain that it couldn't handle cleaning the several halls and stairways of the apartment building he owned; really a job for a full-sized vac.

My only beef about Oreck is pricing. The Oreck stores and some chain stores really go off the chart pricewise regarding the simple machine an Oreck actually is. The Hoover Platinum upright and handheld canister hold the trump card here due to not only good cleaning but usual price point advantage.