I bought this Carpet Cleaner to replace my older Hoover Carpet Cleaner, and there are some improvements made with the newer machine. It is easier to refill and empty the dirty water, and it is lighter. But it is mostly made of plastic and I know that it will wear out more quickly than the previous models. I also prefer to control when the cleaning solution is deposited on the carpet, but this newer machine does not have any release mechanism for that feature, you just have to keep going forward over the same spot to do a deeper cleaning. I like the new brushes on the machine, because the old ones were circular and often filled up with dog hairs. The newer rotating roller brushes seem to clean better.
I have 3 rooms in my home that have carpet and researched all types of carpet cleaners. One thing I knew is I wanted a small carpet cleaner to store and not take up too much space. This SmartWash+ is amazing it does a great job cleaning carpets and it is the size of a vacuum cleaner. The customer service at Hoover is wonderful!