Roomba Dirt Dog ~ A New Definition Of Tough

The original Roombas were all smart and hardworking, but weren't really tough enough to clean up the garage. Well, now there's a Roomba that is: the Dirt Dog. Users have called the Roomba Dirt Dog the "most useful Roomba in the series," apparently because it really sucks (remember, that's a compliment in the robovac world). Seriously, though, the Dirt Dog was designed to be a shop vacuum, so it's extra tough. It's a heavy-duty machine intended for cleaning up workshops, garages, and basements. Some people even let them loose on their patios and decks, and the Dirt Dog's a whiz at cleaning industrial surfaces.

The taxi-yellow Dirt Dog is amazingly inexpensive (in fact, it cost less than almost all the household models) but it includes top-notch technology with many of the improvements available in the Roomba 500 series robots, including those effective counter-rotating brushes -- just the thing for nabbing woodchips, sawdust, metal flakes, nuts, bolts, nails, and, yes, even ordinary dirt and grime. Once you see it work, you might be tempted to use it as a household vacuum; some people do. It'll heed your Virtual Walls just like your Roomba, and it'll do a heck of a job of cleaning. But fair warning: it's intended for rough, lower-quality floors like you might find in a workshop, so it might not be the best option for delicate indoor carpets.

November 2008: Latest updates are in green.

On to part eleven:

• Your Own Little Mermaid
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