Bought this on the basis of the reviews here and was very disappointed. I needed something to clean road dirt off of my blacktop and quick sweep our wood decks. We have an asphalt driveway, but live off a dirt road. In the winter, the dirt really piles up. To clean up, I typically rake, sweep, then power wash. Was hoping this would shortcut some of the work.
First, the good... This unit is easy to assembly, light and reasonably ergonomic. It picks up the medium sized stuff well... leaves, clumps of grass, etc. It was not at all tiring to push around, much better than brooming effort.
It does not do well with sticks and pine-needles, which tend to pile up and get caught on the side.
This unit was very incapable of clearing the fine dirt from the road. 10 passes and it only got about half of it. The dirt quickly clogged the wheel height adjustment, so it felt like I was breaking this thing when adjusting. Clouds of dirt went up all around me (this was something that I hoped to avoid). Its easy to dump the collector contents but then you have to flip the machine to get the excess out of the bottom of the pan so that the collector will rest back in the unit properly when replaced.
On our wood deck, this unit fought with every little sliver end, pulling up pieces of the deck as it went, and I did have the height properly adjusted.
Essentially a good idea, but needs better execution... this one is going back to the factory...