Review : Oreck Magnesium RS Vacuum Cleaner

So, hands up anyone who has heard of Oreck? Nope? Don’t worry, I hadn’t either until I became the proud owner of one of their vacuums. Now I feel like I’m part of some exclusive secret club. So anyway, I’ve had this vacuum cleaner for a little over a month now and it has revolutionised the chore of hoovering for me. We’ve already learnt here in the past that I’m not a big fan of housework. I don’t really enjoy ironing, I can’t say I’m a big fan of laundry and I’m not really one for washing up either.

Well, we can certainly add hoovering to the list of household chores that I dislike and while we’re here let’s put it at the top. When I first moved in with my husband and we divided up the housework, he got the hoovering, that’s how much I hated it. But why did I hate it so much? Because hoovers, whether the upright or cylinder variety, tend to be really heavy and hard to manoeuvre, which makes the task pretty damn exhausting. So that was definitely one chore I wanted to trade off right from the start.

Since we’ve had the kids though, the flat is in constant need of hoovering. It’s gone from a weekly task to a multiple-times-a-day task. We previously had a Vax cylinder model, something like this, which was a pretty great hoover, but dragging it around the flat and lugging it over strategically placed stair gates was not really ideal. I ended up using a little hand-held hoover to hoover the living room most days. Crawling around on my hands and knees actually became preferable to getting out the big hoover, that’s how bad it was. Until we got the Oreck Magnesium RS.

Let me give you a little bit of background info to start. Originally an American brand, Oreck produces and sells vacuums, air purifiers, floor machines and cleaning products throughout the US, Canada and parts of Europe. The company was founded in 1963 by David Oreck who started to manufacture upright vacuum cleaners for the US hotel industry. He wanted to help hotel housekeeping staff who were burdened by having to lug heavy and cumbersome machines around on a daily basis, so he came up with a radical new design that was both lightweight and powerful. Now obviously they were very successful and also very popular with the staff, who then wanted to use them in their own homes, so eventually Oreck Corporation began selling its products directly to consumers.

Oreck is actually part of the same company as the Hoover, Vax and Dirt Devil brands but while these are seen as a more mass market range of products, Oreck is considered to be a more premium brand bought by people who do their research extensively first and buy a machine with the expectation that it will last them 10 to 15 years or so at least. So that’s probably why I’d never heard of Oreck as I’ve never extensively researched vacuum cleaners before. I wish I had though, as I’d have bought one of these years ago and saved myself the inconvenience of using other heavier and more cumbersome models.

So I guess you want to know what makes the Oreck Magnesium RS vacuum cleaner so special? Well, after using it for over a month now, I feel like I have enough experience to tell you.

Ultra Lightweight

Firstly, it is ultra-lightweight. At only 4.2kg it is actually the lightest bagged vacuum cleaner on sale in the UK. I don’t think you can really understand what a bonus this is until you have used a machine as light as this. It is so easy to carry around the home, you can even do it one handed. Also, its compact design means you can store it anywhere and it can be wall-hung to save even more space.

Powerful Suction

This vacuum has incredible suction power. With our previous hoover it would do a great job at picking up all the dirt and dust and the carpet looked fine afterwards, but with the Oreck Magnesium RS it looks like a new carpet. The first time we used it I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. According to the technical specification, “the RS’s powerful suction creates 100mph of airflow, which is combined with a roller brush rotating at over 7,000rpm to draw dirt right into the 10 litre HEPA bag”. That is a lot of suction right there! In fact, this vacuum is so powerful it feels self-propelled. I kid you not! The moment you push it forward, it almost runs away from you. Manoeuvring it is just so effortless as it glides along practically on its own.

Low Profile

The Oreck Magnesium RS features a brilliant Slim Swivel design, which makes turning corners and getting around obstacles a breeze. It also has a really low profile and can be laid practically flat which is great for getting under any furniture. An added bonus is the twin LED lights which can illuminate any dark corners you may need to hoover.

Two-speed Quick Switch

The vacuum features a wireless two speed Quick Switch in the handle that allows you to easily switch between two different power levels depending on the floor type you are vacuuming. So for example, you can switch it down to a lower power setting if you are hoovering a rug. I’m still not sure I understand the whole wireless thing here and why this is a good thing, but my husband ensures me it is. All I know is that you need batteries for the switch to work, so I guess this could be a problem if they ran out midway through hoovering and you didn’t have any spares to replace them.

Self-seal System

The Magnesium 10-litre self-sealing bag system is also quite cool as it automatically seals in 99% of particles when you change bags for cleaning. This means that you can change the bag without creating that nasty unhygienic dust cloud that other models suffer from. We found this problem when emptying our bagless Vax as our kitchen would get engulfed in a dirty, airborne puff of dust and filth that would then eventually settle all over the kitchen…not nice particularly if you have allergies.

6 Year Guarantee

Oreck is so confident in the build quality of its machines that the Oreck Magnesium RS is backed by a six-year guarantee.

So what about the downsides? There must be some, right? Well, there is a special attachment that you can use for cleaning tiled floors, I personally haven’t tried this, but my husband did and he wasn’t impressed. He said it was pointless so he removed it and hoovered the kitchen tiles without it and said that worked perfectly well and there was no need for an attachment. I’ll have to test this out myself next time!

And also, while it isn’t a problem for us living in a flat, I’d imagine some people might struggle to hoover their stairs without a hose attachment or any other tools. I can’t test the Oreck out on stairs as we don’t have any so I’m not sure how well it would cope.

But other than that, no downsides. I’ve enjoyed not hated doing the hoovering since we’ve had the Oreck Magnesium RS vacuum cleaner. I definitely do it more often and I don’t just leave it to my husband anymore. Due to its lightweight design and ease of manoeuvrability I now have no problem whipping it out on a daily basis for a quick once over. I no longer need to crawl around with the tiny hand-held hoover so that is definitely a bonus.

If any of you guys own or have used an Oreck vacuum cleaner I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments!

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Disclosure: This post has been written in collaboration with Oreck who kindly supplied the product for the purpose of this review. This was done on the understanding that if I did not like it I would return it and wouldn’t feature it on the blog. All the opinions in this review are my own and I stress that I only collaborate with brands and companies that I genuinely like and believe that my readers will like too.