After years of buying cheap vacuum cleaners, we shelled out $650 for a Miele canister vacuum cleaner. Best vacuum cleaner we’ve ever had. This sounds silly, but it has far more suction–I don’t know if it creates a better vacuum or just moves more air, but without a beater bar you can see dust getting lifted and flying into the hose just from the vacuum alone. Basically our other vacuum cleaners relied on the brush or the beater bar. The vacuum itself didn’t do much cleaning, it just gently pulled away the dirty air that the brush or beater bar had stirred up.
Think twice about cheaping out. Apparently good motors cost money.