Swivel Sweeper G2

I was thinking about doing a separate blog to do reviews and advertising through a place called blogadvertisingstore.com. I signed up for their program, but it doesn't seem to be working. Anyway, I created a separate blog and did this review as practice, but now I've decided to delete that page and just put reviews on here if I end up doing them. Why make it more complicated than I already do? And I'm not an advertiser, I'm a court jester. Well, here's a product review wrapped up in an anecdote. I hope you enjoy.
One morning I turned the TV on before ever getting out of bed. I saw an infomercial for this product, the Swivel Sweeper G2. It looked too good to be true. This little cordless vacuum was weaving effortlessly under and around furniture and picking up everything in its path. Nuts and bolts were no problem for the SSG2. Spilled cereal? Forget about it! This thing grabs it all. And emptying the dirt trap, well, let me tell you, simple as pie. I was enamored by the claims of the spokespeople. Perhaps it was the fact that I was hardly awake, or maybe the bright color of the sweeper along with the gentle hum of its motor hypnotized me, either way, I went to the website and ordered the product. I think what tipped the scales in favor of me making the purchase was the 2 for 1 deal at the end of the commercial. 4-quad-brush technology is good, but is it $40 good? It doesn't matter because I could have 2 x 4-quad-brush technology for the price of 1 x 4-quad-brush technology. That seems like an awfully inefficient way to say it, yet it has been said, no take backs now, unlike the 60-day money back guarantee (minus fees for shipping and processing) of the SSG2. I am now the owner of the SSG2, and I have used it. There are two questions that I wanted to answer with my purchase: does it do what the advertisements claim it does? does it do it well? I will first explain why I thought the product would be beneficial to me. My family has a dog, a black lab, a big guy with lots of hair that he leaves all over the floor, everywhere. I also have an autistic brother who tends to shred paper and advertising circulars that come in the mail. It is not uncommon to find the floor around the dining table covered with inch deep shredded paper strips. One last area of the house was on my mind when contemplating this product, the hallway just inside the back door. Jasper (the dog) uses that door to go in and out, with our help of course, he doesn't have hands. We also use that door to go in and out. Grass clippings get tracked in as the grass in the yard comes right up to the back step, there isn't any patio or deck buffer zone. So for a few days after the lawn is mowed there usually accumulates a good amount of grass clippings just inside the door. You might be asking why I can't just use a broom for these issues, why do I need a special little vacuum? Hang on to that question. The SSG2 arrived and I assembled it quickly with the included instructions, it was a basic task. I read through the user guide and charged the battery as directed. The next day I tried the product out. I was both pleased and displeased with it. Does it do what it claims? Sure, but does it do it well? I suppose. Is it worth the money, I say yes, if you get the 2 for 1 deal. I would part with $20 for the unit, but not $40.
Pros:
-works on hard floors and carpet
-picks up hair very well
-can pick up nuts and bolts
-swivels with the best of them, I'm talking moves like Fred Astaire
-maintains charge sufficiently long for going over floors
-light weight and easy to use
Cons:
-hair and strings get wrapped around the spinning brushes like nobody's business
-while it doesn't blow things around like a standard broom it does kick up a lot of dust
-can't pick up heavy flat things like pennies, I don't know if you'd want to, but if it can grab a bolt I think it ought to grab a penny
-it doesn't have enough power to pull things out of carpet fibers very well
What it comes down to is that the SSG2 can have a place in your cleaning arsenal. In my case, it won't replace a standard broom because it can't pick up shredded paper. It won't replace a standard vacuum because it doesn't have as much power on the carpets. I've never used a Swiffer Sweeper, but I assume that these two are going to be similar in function. The SSG2 gets points because it doesn't have a one-use pad that needs to be changed every time you want to sweep, but it loses those same points because of the film of dust and dirt that is covering it after you run it for a few minutes. Crumbs, pet hair and dust will get sucked up by the SSG2, and they are all easily disposed of with the pop-open trap door on the bottom. But with the amount of dust covering the unit after use I can only imagine how much more is going up my nose. Perhaps the Swiffer-types with their employment of static will send less particulates into the air, but they won't be able to pick up as much stuff without needing to replace the pad. All in all, I don't think the product is worth $40, nor do I think it adequately replaces a standard broom and vacuum. I like it for picking up dog hair, but I could do the same job with a hard floor vacuum, probably more efficiently. Too bad I didn't read my own review before I bought it, I might not have bought it. Interesting.