Royal 501 vs Dirt Devil 500

[stephanb9]

Hey guys I am looking at purchasing a hand vac to use on upholstery in my car and on furniture and was wondering which I should get and how much is a good price to pick one up for. I like the look of the old Royal 501s and have seen some performance videos against other hand vacs and was quite impressed however I dont know much about the Dirt Devil 500 the first time I actually saw one in person was a couple days ago when I took my 993 into my local vac shop to be serviced it was a really nice looking black plastic model with the black and yellow royal/dirt devil bag. Any info is greatly appreciated. (pics for reference the royal pic is from here)

 

[hygiene903]

Royal vs. Dirt Devil

Performance-wise, I believe one would be the same as the other, as they were both built by Royal, both have the same brush roll, and if I'm not mistaken, both have the same motor. However, the Royal 501 would be much more durable than the Dirt Devil, having been made of metal instead of plastic. Either one would do a fine job on the upholstery in your car.
Jeff

 

[panasonicvac]

Both are excellent handvacs. But between the two, my pick would be the Dirt Devil. Why? The Dirt Devil is more modern, you'd have better luck of finding parts for it. Also, The Dirt Devil has a much better bag set up. And the Royal is known for clogging if vacuuming up a large mess of debris. That's my two cents.

 

[blackheart]

Dirt devil

For collectable purpose royal, for useage dirt devil as Alex has already pointed out they have a much better bag system

 

[repairman]

Parts for both machines are becoming hard to find these days but like Alex said, you will have a better chance with the Dirt Devils. I needed a fan for my 103 and didn't find one until last year. Also, the 500 was a model that came in black with a red or yellow bag and was bundled with attachments. The all red 103 made you purchase the attachments separately. They are the exact same machine. It's also up to you whether or not you want to use a shake out bag or find one that uses disposable bags. Whatever you do, don't buy a Dirt Devil Ultra.

 

[human]

I passed up a Dirt Devil 500 at a thrift shop a few weeks ago since I already had three Royal Prince 501's. It was in its original box and they wanted $25 for it, which I thought was too much, considering I'd bought my third 501 from the same shop a few months earlier and had only paid $20. I've seen 103's on thrift shop shelves for less than $10 and would consider buying one of those as a brush roll donor.

All that said, you can't really go wrong with either one of them but for me, I have to agree with Jeff's assessment that metal wins every time.

 

[stephanb9]

Thanks for the feedback I think I am going to go for the 501 to match my other Royals. Hopefully I can find one with the attachments and it looks like with how many of them there are on ebay I could piece one together if I ever needed parts.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

I have a set of NIB

tools for the DD.

 

[panasonicvac]

Make sure that your gasket on the bag has a good proper seal, they're also known to leak dust out of them.

 

[stephanb9]

Just wanted to update you guys on what I ended up getting. I found a new in box model 5000

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