Polaris 9300 Sport or Aquabot Rapids AWD?

[Mankirk]

I am a new pool owner with an 18,000 gallon freeform concrete pool with steps. I am interested in a robotic pool cleaner to keep the walls and waterline clean and minimize the fine silt that sometimes forms on the bottom and walls of my pool after storms blow debris into the water. My pool being concrete, it tends to get debris and algae growth in the 'grain' of the concrete surface that takes a lot of brushing to and vacuuming to remove. I have reviewed lots of brands and models on-line and have found all the information a little overwhelming - reviews that contradict each other, board postings (like here on TFP) where one user has an issue another has never had, etc. The bottom line is a sense I have two classes on robots to consider - those selling on the street for $600 -$700 and those selling for about twice that.

I have a local retailer selling the Aquabot Rapids AWD for $630 and I can get a Polaris 9300 Sport for about $600. I know the 9300 Sport has been discontinued, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between it and its replacement, feature-wise. I have read both pro and con about both of these models, although there seems to be less real user information about these two models than most. About the only thing I can find is the Polaris specifications show it will filter 100 micron debris, while Aquabot says the Rapids AWD goes all the way down to 2 microns - quite a difference there, but I'm not sure it matters in my case. If anyone has ideas about how to choose between these two, I'd appreciate you're chiming in.

My other option would be the Dolphin Premier at about $1,280. Only PoolExpress.com sells this unit, but I understand it is a private label Supreme M4 at heart. I found one really nice YouTube video made by an owner/user about the Premier - and it looked like a really good unit, but I'm not sure it's worth twice the price even at that. The M4 gets overall good reviews from users, but I am concerned about comments I've read about Maytronics proving poor support, not honoring warranties for units purchased on-line, etc. I don't know how PoolExpress.com would make that any different since Maytronics still makes it.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[VinceL]

We have the Polairs 9300xi for our fiberglass pool. Initially, it would leave behind very fine dirt in the pool. I learned that there was an optional filter for the 9300 that had much finer mesh. I bought one of them, and it works great; it picks up all the fine dirt that the standard filter would let through. The 9300xi does have trouble getting the stairs clean. When we put it in the pool, we always use a brush to clear any dirt off the steps.

 

[EVChargeGuy]

I'm a very happy owner of the AB Rapids 4WD. Compared to my old AB turbo it a pleasure to clean out the baskets as oppose to the bag. I have a lot of trees around the pool and just had major paver work done = so pine needles, cones! acorns, whatever! as well as sand blowing into the pool almost daily.
It seems to get it all
Like VinceL's Polaris, the 4 WD has issue with the radius of my upper two steps and I just brush them