I have the purple one, it works well. Look at Woot.com today, Dyson is the featured product..

I have the purple dyson animal and I HATE IT !! it is way too heavy. I purchased it because I have a dog that sheds alot and a horse that sheds about 4 times a year. I mainly use the hand held part for pet hair. It does a great job in getting hair off my clothes, doggie bed and horse saddle pads ( gets the dirt off too).
What I don't like about it - the head is too high, so you can't get under your kitchen cabinets, some pieces of furniture and when I put the flat head on it and try to sweep under furniture it kind of lifts so I don't think it is cleaning the carpet well.

I bought a Eureka Pet model and it's way lighter, the suction is EXCELLENT and the attachment is easy to use also. I love it because it's light weight but powerful! The head is a lot smaller so it doesn't do as large of a path as the Dyson, but I don't care about that. The only negative is the filter gets clogged/full and must be cleaned off very frequently. I didn't realize that it could/would clog that easily, it shut off and I thought I had burnt up the motor, was ready to throw it in the trash. But, then I found out that if you wait 20 -30 minutes, clean out the back part the sweeper will run again. It's a built in safety feature.

I also bought 2 romba's (Ruby & Rudy) I really haven't used them yet, I bought them for my new house's harwood flooring.

I would never buy another Dyson unless it came complete w/ someone else to run it and carry it around. Lifting it up the steps is horrific !

The DC28 is about 20 lbs empty.

The DC25 is about 23 lbs empty.

I don't find that heavy at all but I guess some do.

I think none are better for pet hair.

If allergens are a concern then I think the Miele S7 is the best. And not too far behind on pet hair. It does have a bag though.

For carpet, I recommend the Hoover Windtunnel Self-propelled. I bought mine 8 years ago when I was looking for better carpet cleaning than I could get with my Electrolux (now called Aerus). I bought it because of CR rating. I did run out of bags one time and borrowed my neighbor's Dyson, and the Dyson definitely had less suction and did not clean the carpet as well as the Hoover. My sister's Dyson was the same way.

I also prefer a bagged vacuum. The Hoover bags are cheap, readily available, huge -- hold a ton of dirt. The intake is at the top, so dirt falls to the bottom, and it doesn't lose suction till it's extremely full.

However, it looks like you have a lot of hard floors, and I must say that I HATE using an upright on hard floors. The high suction power is not needed, nor the brushroll (which you will have to turn off), and the lack of maneuverability is a huge minus to me. I currently use a Miele canister with an Electrolux (now Aerus) horsehair hard-floor attachment on my hard floors.

I also bought a Hoover Windtunnel self propelled about 8 - 10 years ago. It worked great with an fresh bag in, but seemed to loose suction fast. I thought the machine was pretty good, and it was better than anything I'd owned up to that point.

Then my daughter broke the self propelled mechanism, and that made it a drag to use, but I kept on for several more years. I bought something else, but it broke and it was still better to use the hoover than it.

I finally broke down and bought a dyson animal. Was I amazed at what it sucked up. I now know that I should have been changing bags on that hoover twice each time I did a whole house vacuum. That is based on the amount of yuck I dump out of the dyson while cleaning. I don't find the weight an issue at all, but not being able to get under things is a drag. I've had the machine for about 7 years now and only cleaned it out good once, and it still sucks very well. And even sucking up things like pennies won't hurt it (no impellor). (BTW if you think the years don't add up it's because for a while I had two houses while we were trying to sell one- DH lived in one and I lived in the other, 400 miles apart).

I have a few things that I still smile EVERY TIME I use them, and my dyson is one of them. I have been married over 30 years, and this is the first vacumn I've had that didn't end up being a disappointment after the first year.

Every person can end up with different results - andersons loves their hoover compared to a dyson, and I think my hoover was a poor example of a vacuum compared to my dyson.

Thanks so much for all the responses. I've read good things about the Hoover, too. I don't use the vacuum on my hardwoods -- I use an electric broom type thing solely for wood (I guess in the hopes of prolonging its life of giving me no scratches?). You all have given me much to think about...