Okies, this floor washer arrived this morning and I have used it already. So I am ready to feed back my opinion for anyone who is interested.
Firstly, I will say that I am very pleased with it and I intend to keep it.
First impressions: the handle slots in easily and the pictorial instructions are easy to follow. It's typically solid Karcher quality.
It's heavier than I expected - which is why, I suppose, they haven't made it cordless. The added weight of a rechargeable battery would add significantly to the weight and unwieldiness of it. I'm not sure I would want to lug this upstairs to do the bathrooms, we'll have to see.
Easy to fill, but it does start to leak from the clean water container more or less straight away, so don't fill it and get distracted by the phone, for example, or you will come back to find it has emptied itself!
In use, it's a bit of an animal. It's quite weighty and it 'runs away with you' a bit. I feel I've had a damn good workout having cleaned all the tiled floors downstairs.
It's also noisy, and both dog and cat are scared witless. It spits water from the front and from the rollers, and leaves the floor quite a lot wetter than the steam mop, but it dries off quickly if there's an open window.
The cord is long, and I found it gets in the way a bit, now that I'm so used to a cordless vac. I got it trapped under the rollers a couple of times, but in this case, the rollers just came off and no damage was done.
Despite steam mopping prior to washing the floor with it, the dirty water container yielded disgusting, filthy water. This confirms what I have always known deep down, that steam mops just move the dirt around, and don't actually remove much at all.
They suggested on the presentation that it vacuums as well as washes, and that you don't need to vac before you use it. I'd say this is rubbish. You definitely need to vac prior to using, and even then you will pick up hair, fluff and bits of gritty dust, which collect under the rim by the rollers. I found I needed a microfibre cloth to keep wiping this clean.
We have a lot of tiled floor downstairs, so I found I needed to re-fill the clean and empty the dirty water containers quite a few times. Each filling lasts for about 10 minutes of washing.
Rather than including the two bottles of cleaning fluid, I wish they had supplied a spare set of rollers. They are available to buy from Karcher & Amazon, but cost about £20 a set.
The rollers come off easily, and mine are now in the washing machine.
The tiled floor is cleaner than it has been for years. I have yet to test it on the laminate, but I'm exhausted!
I don't consider myself to have a particularly filthy house, but I have a Dyspraxic husband, a cat, and a hairy Spaniel to clean up after, so I think I have given it a good run this morning and I am very pleased with the results.
To summarise then; I rate it highly. Although I won't be parting with my Shark, which I think still has a place in my gadget arsenal.