I have cleaned carpets in Phoenix for fifteen years, eight of them running my own residential crew, and I do not judge carpet cleaning machines by the copy on the box. I judge them by what lands in the dirty water tank, how long the carpet stays damp, and whether I can carry the thing up a staircase at the end of a long day. Those three questions decide whether a machine earns floor space in my van or ends up on the curb with a free sign taped to it.
Related: Portable Spot Cleaners Vs Full Size Carpet Cleaners
Short answer first: if you have carpet and a pet, buy a wet extractor for the carpet and a cheap stick vacuum to keep the grit off it. The Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced is the wet machine I would start with, and the Eureka Blaze is the low-cost daily vacuum that keeps that extractor from working overtime. If you rent an apartment with three area rugs and no pets, you can spend far less and still get a clean floor. Check current Amazon price on all four before you commit, because the gaps move around.
Eureka Blaze Stick Vacuum Cleaner
Cheap enough to keep one on every floor, converts to a handheld for stairs and car mats, light enough that you will actually use it
Dry-only: it lifts grit, it does not touch a set stain or a spill
Hoover CleanSlate Plus Portable Carpet + Upholstery Spot Cleaner Machine
Built for the jobs a full-size machine cannot reach: stairs, couches, car seats
Small tanks mean refilling in the middle of a whole-room job
Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced Compact Carpet Cleaner Machine
Compact and light, above-floor tools included, designed to be paired with Hoover solution
Not a deep-restoration machine for a trashed rental carpet
Miele Triflex HX1 Battery Powered Bagless Stick Vacuum
Premium cordless stick vacuum, bagless, reconfigures between cleaning modes
Battery runtime and price, and it is not a wet cleaner at all
Prices and availability were captured from Amazon Creators API and may change.
These four machines are not the same tool
Two of them are dry vacuums. Two of them put water and solution into your carpet and pull dirty water back out. That difference matters more than any brand-versus-brand argument, and it is the most common mistake I see homeowners make. People buy a stick vacuum expecting it to lift a coffee stain out of a beige berber, then they call me.
A dry vacuum handles dry soil. Grit, sand, crumbs, pet hair, the stuff that acts like sandpaper on fibers every time someone walks across the room. The Eureka Blaze is that tool: a stick vacuum that converts to a small handheld, aimed at hard floor and pet hair pickup.
The Miele Triflex HX1 is also that tool, one tier up. Cordless, bagless, battery powered, and it reconfigures between different cleaning shapes. It is the vacuum you leave standing out because it looks good enough to leave out, which in my experience is the real test of whether a vacuum gets used at all.
The Hoover CleanSlate Plus is a wet machine, a portable spot cleaner for carpet and upholstery. The Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced is also a wet machine, a compact carpet shampooer with above-floor cleaning. Both lay solution down and pull dirty water back up. Neither one is a vacuum, and running one over a gritty carpet is how you turn grit into mud.
How I judge any carpet machine
First, the dirty water. I weigh the tank before and after a pass. If the tank comes out clear, the machine did not clean, it just made the carpet wet. That is the whole review. Every claim about suction, brushes, or "professional results" gets settled by what comes out in the tank.
Second, dry time. I clock it. A carpet that is still damp tomorrow is a carpet that smells like a wet dog by Thursday and grows things by next week. Dry time is a function of how much water the machine leaves behind, which is why recovery matters more than whatever number is printed on the box.
Third, can I lift it and empty it. A machine that is a pain to haul gets used less, and a machine that gets used less cleans worse. Weight is a feature. A tank that spills when you carry it to the sink is a design failure that costs you an hour of cleanup.
Fourth, the solution. It is part of the machine's cost. A cheap machine that only runs well on expensive solution is not cheap. I keep a shelf of solutions I actually trust, and I have watched a bad formula strip color out of a rug, so I do not gamble here.
The dry side: Eureka Blaze and Miele Triflex HX1
The Eureka Blaze is the machine I recommend to people who keep telling me they will "get to the vacuuming later." It is light, it converts to a handheld, it has a filter you can knock out and rinse, and it is built for hard floor and pet hair. Those are the two jobs that matter most between professional cleanings. Pet hair mats down and traps grit against the backing, and grit on hard floor scratches the finish. Both problems get solved by a vacuum that is easy enough to grab, and this one is easy enough to grab.
What it will not do is pull embedded soil out of a plush carpet, and it will not touch a stain. If you buy it expecting extraction, you will be disappointed, and that disappointment will not be the machine's fault.
The Miele Triflex HX1 sits at the other end of the dry category. Bagless, battery powered, cordless, and it reconfigures rather than asking you to store three separate tools. For a homeowner with a mix of hard floor, rugs, and a staircase, that flexibility is the point. It is also the machine here with the highest cost of entry, and a battery is a consumable, not a lifetime part. My honest read: if you clean often and you want the vacuum to be pleasant, this is the pleasant one. If you clean twice a month, you are paying for pleasure you will not use.
One note that applies to every cordless stick vacuum, including this one: a battery means a runtime, and a runtime means a decision about how much of the house you finish before you stop. On a full-house job with a shedding dog, I still reach for a corded vacuum. Cordless wins on stairs, cars, and quick passes, and that is not a knock, it is a job description.
The wet side: Hoover CleanSlate Plus and Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced
The CleanSlate Plus is a portable spot cleaner for carpet and upholstery, and portable is the entire argument. Stairs are where full-size machines go to fail. You cannot set a wide upright on a tread, the hose does not reach around a landing, and the machine itself is a hazard on the steps. A portable with a hose solves that, and it also solves the couch, the car seats, and the mattress. That is a real list of jobs, and it is the list most people actually have.
The trade-off is tank size and pace. Portable tanks are small by design, because you are carrying them. On one flight of stairs, that is fine. On a 200-square-foot bedroom, you will be emptying and refilling more often than you want, and every refill is a chance to slop water on the floor you just cleaned.
The PowerDash Pet Advanced is the compact carpet shampooer in this group, and it takes the opposite approach. It is still light enough to carry, but it is built to clean a room rather than a step, and it includes above-floor cleaning for the upholstery and stair work that people forget about until they are halfway through. Hoover also designs it to be paired with their own solution, which matters more than it sounds. A machine and a formula built together tend to behave together, and you avoid the foaming problem that shows up when you mix a random detergent with an extractor.
Where it loses: it is not a restoration machine. If a tenant left a carpet that has been wet for a month, or a rental unit with ten years of traffic lanes, a compact shampooer will improve it and not save it. Know which job you have.
Dry time is the spec nobody prints
Nobody advertises dry time, and dry time is the number that decides whether you regret cleaning your carpet. Water left in the pad is the beginning of a smell problem, and smell problems do not come out with more cleaning, they come out with replacement.
Here is what actually controls dry time, in order: how much water the machine leaves behind, how much air you move afterward, and the humidity in the room. Phoenix is forgiving. Most of the country is not. If you live somewhere humid, run a fan or two and turn the air conditioning down, and do not walk on the carpet until it is genuinely dry rather than dry to the touch on top.
This is also why I care about the dirty water measurement so much. A machine that recovers well leaves less behind. A machine that sprays generously and recovers poorly leaves a soaked pad and a tank that looks impressive because you put all that water in yourself.
The solution is part of the machine
I have said solution does not matter, and I keep a shelf of expensive ones, which is a contradiction I live with. The nuance: solution matters less than the machine, and more than the price tag suggests. What you are looking for is a formula that lifts soil without foaming and without stripping color. Foam is the enemy, because foam fills the recovery path and the machine stops pulling water. Stripping is the other enemy, and it is permanent.
Buy the solution the machine was designed around, especially with the Hoover units, then experiment later if you want. Do not start your first extraction with a random all-purpose cleaner and a prayer.
Where each one loses, plainly
The Eureka Blaze loses on depth. It is a surface machine, and no amount of technique changes that.
The Miele Triflex HX1 loses on cost and on battery. You are paying for a premium cordless experience, and the experience ends when the battery does.
The CleanSlate Plus loses on capacity. Small tanks, more refills, slower on open rooms.
The PowerDash Pet Advanced loses on scale. It is a compact machine, and compact is not the same as industrial.
None of those are defects. They are the shape of the tool.
What I would actually buy
For a household with carpet and a pet, the pairing is the answer: the Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced for the carpet and upholstery, and the Eureka Blaze for the daily grit that wears fibers down. That combination covers the two jobs that actually happen in a normal home, and it costs less than one premium cordless vacuum.
If your cleaning is mostly stairs, a couch, a car, and the occasional accident, the Hoover CleanSlate Plus is the better single purchase. If your home is mostly hard floor with a few rugs, and you want the vacuum itself to be a pleasure, the Miele Triflex HX1 is the one I would hand you.
What I would not do is buy a stick vacuum and expect it to clean a stain. That is the mistake this whole comparison exists to prevent.
What I am testing next
I am running a stair-cleaning test on four portable units right now: a real staircase, real dirt, and a dry-time clock on each tread. Portables win stairs on paper, and I want to know how much of that survives contact with a landing. I will publish the log when the last step is dry.