Evolution Robotics Mint Automatic Hard Floor Cleaner, 4200

Fantastic cleaning robot!
I must say, I'm impressed with the mapping system on this little guy. I have a very large (20'X20') open living room/kitchen area giving plenty of obstacles to confuse it. There's a staircase (which it deftly avoids), an island, a kitchen table with chairs, a couch and a number of tables for it to go under, an area rug and a piece of curved beveled glass on the floor that serves as a stand for a fireplace (which it surprisingly does not ride up on). Also, the room is overall "U" shaped with several entryways. This is the only robotic cleaner that has been able to figure this room out in its entirety. Other things to note is the room has a large fan and high, sloped ceilings and it can still find it's way.

My Roomba did terribly. It would get stuck in one section, the Neato XV was OK but would miss some parts. This thing does a great job of freshening up the floor and getting at just about everything due to it's small size!

One thing I did not know is the Mint...

Mint v Roomba: Which is hte Better Sucker
The short version, for those reading many reviews quickly is this; the Mint has many advantages over the Roomba on a feature for feature basis. But at the end of the day, the Roomba is the better product and picked up a LOT more pet hair.

Here's the longer version with the gory details:

Both of these are great innovations. True, the Mint is far quieter, cheaper and cooler looking than the Roomba. It is also easier/cheaper to maintain. But the Roomba gets more dust off the floor, despite the fact that the Mint can get under places Roomba can not, and Roomba returns to its base for a re-charge on it's own, as needed. The Mint just dies in place.

The guy on here who's review said that he sent his Roomba on a mission and then sent the Mint after it to discover dirt the Roomba missed, would have had the same result if he performed the experiment in reverse. I know b/c I did just that. these two devices clean differently, so any comparison is useless...

Beware False Hopes
First: notice the 5-star rating that I have given this.

I agree with all of the 5-star reviewers: this product is worth the price (have had it about 6 weeks now). I have used it on vinyl (Congoleum/linoleum) floors, tile floors and wooden floors. It works well on all of them. Time will tell more.

However, rather than repeat what others have said, I will describe some aspects that might disappoint you when/if you buy it, but these do not outweigh the benefits.

- This does NOT do a deep clean. That takes elbow grease and this, naturally, is not heavy enough to scrub that well (you wouldn't want it to be that heavy). You will have to do a deep clean first. The Mint will then maintain that clean floor. I use it about once a week.

- The designers did a generally good job, except for the week when they all took vacation at once and let the janitor decide where to put the charging port. Believe or not, these idiots put the port in a spot on the...

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