I got mine this summer when they were $100 off. I've never had a pool cleaner before, but I'm very happy with it! Being that i manually vacuumed the pool every time, i never really saw what was being collected, so i cant really compare that aspect. This robot picks up a lot of sand, leafs, and other junk that is on the bottom. It seems to get stuck in the deepend of my pool somewhat, although it does get out once about every other try. I do have a steep sloped deep end though. It collects about 95% (The last 5% is what will drive you crazy) of all the Crud and is super easy to use. I'm sure a manual vacuum job does a little better (I'm very particular when i do it), but you're wasting an hour and a half of your time. Just let the Kleen Machine run and forget about it! overall I'd rate it at 4.5 ****.5 stars, just because it seems to have trouble in my deep end, and for it leaving 5% of the leaves.