An "Ingenio" Purchase

[sireluxomatic]

My little Electrolux Tabby sadly bit the dust the other day. My wife and I recently moved to a new apartment in Beijing, and the previous owners were dirty, to say the least. I swear I picked up more dirt with the Tabby in the last week than in the previous 5 or so years I've owned it. Anyway, as I was using it, it gave a dismal groan, and smoke came out of it. I'm not sure if it was a faulty outlet, or if 5 years is all to be expected from a bottom of the line made-in-China Electrolux, but it gave me really good service, and I'm sad to see it go (I'm even keeping it in the closet...don't quite have the heart to get rid of it).

Be that as it may, I had to go vacuum shopping. I wanted another Electrolux, and managed to come up with this:

The Ingenio!

 

[sireluxomatic]

Full View

Ready to go, with all the attachments. It has a hepa filter (not that that was top of my list), cloth and paper bags, a metal telescopic wand with an accessory clip, bare floor/carpet nozzle, small combination crevice tool/dusting brush, and a combination dusting brush/upholstery tool (with an angled neck adapter) like the American/Canadian Electrolux combination tool. The large nozzle is for bare floors (a free gift from the saleslady). Not a bad ensemble.

 

[sireluxomatic]

Closer View of Attachments

My new apartment is smaller than the last one, and that wide floor nozzle does the whole thing in minutes. Also, the angled neck adaptor really comes in handy for hard-to-get-at places.

One drawback is that the hose sticks right up out of the machine...it should be angled downward so it can swivel more freely. Another is the icons on the cord rewind and on/off buttons...they're the same color as the button! Other than that, it seems to be a good vacuum; it has strong suction, even at the lowest speed setting. This comes in handy when my wife is around...she hates the sound of any vacuum cleaner, let alone a loud modern one.

 

[petek]

It sort of looks like the orange Elux Oxygens... How much do those sell for over there in China?

 

[sireluxomatic]

Ingenio Price

Hi Pete. The vacuum excluding the bare floor nozzle was 998 Chinese RMB, which is about $140 Canadian. The price of the nozzle would bring it up to around $160...with discounts I got the whole ensemble for $125, not to mention a set of soup bowls (thanks to my wife's bargaining power). Sounds cheap in Canadian dollars, but in China its slightly above average for a vacuum.