It takes a little bit of patience to figure out the different setting combinations on the vacuum. If it's in the carpet mode, it is self-propelled and you should be ready to steer because it's on the move. If it's set for hardwood floors, then it's not self-propelled. There are degrees of suction power to choose from. You can also use the wand with or without the attachments. Would advise you to pull the very long cord out completely before turning the vacuum on, as the cord compartment gets pretty warm when running. I find the cannister to be clumsy to pull around and I get tangled in the cord. Maybe I'm just a klutz. The wand part is difficult to stand it up without having it fall over. You have to work with it to place the hose just right so it doesn't pull the wand to the floor. Overall, it's much better than my Oreck, but its size makes it much harder to store.

I grew up using a Kenmore vacuum made in the pre-plastic days that worked well for over 30 years. I bought my first Kenmore vacuum in 2002 and it lasted 20 years, with some maintenance and a couple of part replacements. I got this one 9 months ago and it works better than other brands I tried. Good suction, great for pet hair and find dust. So far the seemingly cheap plastic parts have held up. My main complaints are the short wand and tiny floor brush. I'm only 5' 5" tall but I have to bend over uncomfortably to vacuum, and I have not yet been able to find a replacement part that will extend the wand to a more comfortable length. The 9" floor brush means many, many passes to clean a hardwood floor, and I have been unable to find a wider replacement because the attachment width for this model is 1.5" rather than the standard 1.25".

We decided to go for a bagged vacuum since we have 5 cats, a dog, and 3 long haired humans and this thing is A BEAST! It has great suction, plenty of attachments and the hose is long and has a large diameter so you don't have to worry about things getting stuck in there. The manuvering of the PowerMate attachment (the main vacuum head) takes some getting used to, but it's nothing that won't get better with practice. The telescoping wand is my husband's favorite feature. It's super handy for teaching the ceiling and getting the top of the cabinets. Personally, I love the PetPowerMate attachment. I've never been able to get all the pet hair off of my couch so quickly. Normally with our old set up it would take 2-3 hours to unweave the pet hair out of the tweed-like fabric that makes up our couch, but with this thing it takes no more than 15 minutes. It's a life saver. I no longer dread vacuuming my house!

I decided on a bagged as I don't like all the dirt and dust flying when you dump a bag less, because of my breathing problems. I also like the power pet mate, able to get all the pet hair from the chairs, etc. The cord wrap is handy when you're done. The pop and go feature, doesn't really pop and go. I have to take out the bare floor attachment and manually add the attachment. I like the fact that the attachments are easy to get to, being stored on top of the vacuum. The lids however are a little flimsy. You have to be extra careful as not to use a lot of strength when opening or closing the lids. The bag used for this is quite large, but only only half can fill because the compartment is to small for the bag. I like the fact that you can control the suction power, for different tasks. Overall, this vacuum has plenty of power and a good choice if you have pets.

Have had this vacuum cleaner for a couple years now and really think it's top notch. It has great suction, it's not too noisy, and is adaptable to any type of floor covering. Some have complained about the retractable cord, but I find it is great and so convenient for storage. The trick is to not expect it to retract cord if it is in anyway bound up. It takes just a second to release the cord from any hindrance before pressing the button to rewind, and sometimes takes a couple tries to get it completely wound up. If it does stop without getting all the cord in the machine, I just give it a light pull to reset it, and push the button again and and the cord always winds up. It's such an advantage, instead of having to wrap the cord around the machine. And all the attachments sit neatly in the machine and don't fall out.
NOTE: There is however one miserable aspect of this machine and that is the floor brush. It is meant to clean hardwood floors, linoleum, tile"¦ It is just a really poor design which is frustrating and difficult to use. I thought I would get used to it after a couple years, but I never did and was actually happy when I broke it with some unusually hard use in the garage. I thought a replacement would be easy to find, however I got the wrong size. What I ordered was for the standard Kenmore and was too small. My advice is Yes by all means buy this vacuum cleaner, you'll love it - but then in additio, order a bare floor replacement brush with it. Search "Kenmore 600 vacuum replacement parts" where you'll see an ordinary brush attachment. It seems Kenmore thought this new brush would be adaptable to all angles but it just never worked for me.