I have just bought one of the new Purepowers with the 750w motors, infact the same one in the picture at the top of this thread...Yes it is cheap-ish, but it is not terrible for a Chinese made vacuum.
This white and red model PU71 only retails in Argos for £89, the Purepowers originally retailed in Argos for way more than that the base model was £128.50 in 1997 (also pictured at the top of this thread). I have the original top of the line 1997 Autosense Purepower and that was £199.99 in Argos!!
The Original Purepowers, depending on the model, had features like Autosense, variable power, bag check light, permabag and air fresheners...All that has been axed now on the newest models and the only features that remain from the very original series are the self sealing dustbags and HEPA S Class filter.
I do like the older Purepowers, the ones that were made in the UK (97-2003ish) they also had a better brushroll, it was called an activator, similar to what the Turbopower 1s, 2s and 3s had...It was a spiral bristle brushroll with beater pads on it...However, some very early models (including mine) didn't have the Activator brushroll, it was similar but without the beater pads, it also had rotating edge cleaning brushes, where as the activator version didn't, that just had static edge cleaning brushes.
I think the newest Purepowers preform just as well as the old ones but they are just a bit louder and they have that cheap vacuum brushroll noise, you know, the "EEEEEE" where as the old ones from the late 90s didn't.
I think it is very good value for money, the Purepower, I mean for £89 you are getting an upright vacuum with a self sealing dustbag, HEPA S Class filter, full 13 stair stretch hose and 3 separate cleaning tools.
The only thing that lets it down is the handle release, which had been a problem for years.
Contrary to popular believe, the Purepowers have not always had a bad handle release, it actually used to be very strong on the 97-2000 models as those ones had a metal string inside the pedal/button...With the spring in there, which formed the tension on the release button, made it very easy to press down and release, however, on later models and indeed the newest models, they just made a spring action out of the moulded plastic pedal and did away with the metal spring, making it very difficult to press down to release and also weakening it, as they changed it to all plastic. It is hard to explain but I hope you understand what I mean.
So, I thought I would show you my top end 1997 Hoover Purepower next to my 2015 Hoover Purepower.
