We’ve reviewed enough carpet cleaners to have a pretty good idea of which to buy and which to avoid if money is not an object. However, if you’re like most people, you probably won’t want to spend more than you have to while at the same time getting the most for your money. If you’ve got $200 to spend on a carpet cleaner, you’ve got a lot of choices. In the past, we’ve looked at this question and had three good choices. However, as the market gets more competitive, the choices get better. Another two favorites of ours are the Bissell 47A23 Proheat and the Bissell DeepClean 17N4. However, which is the better deal for $200? We took a closer look at both to find out.

Pros and Cons of the Bissell 47A23 Proheat 2x Premier Full-Size Carpet Cleaner.

Our team found the Bissell 47A23 easy to use and intuitive from the moment we put it to use. We liked the size of the cleaning tank;  at 1.25 gallons, we were able to get a decent amount of each carpet cleaned before we went running for the sink. We were also fans of the great job it did cleaning a wide range of carpets, including those that had recently been urinated on (by cats, dogs, and more than one toddler mid-diaper change). Bissell talks about how 10 rows of cleaning brushes are present; we opened the 47A23 up out of curiosity and can confirm that there was an impressive array of cleaning tools there. Of course, the proof is in the pudding (to determine something’s value, you need to use it first), and we’re happy to say that the 47A23 also did well with food stains. It’s an all-around solid cleaner and the best we’ve come across at the sub-$200 price point (and yes, it definitely surpassed the FH50150 in our books).

Overall, there were only a few things we’d have liked to have seen done differently in the 47A23. For example, we’re just not fans of the hybrid tank approach; it means fewer trips to the sink and fewer tanks to carry there, but it also meant we didn’t always get the full use out of our clean water due to needing to empty out the dirty water. However, this is a common issue to nearly every carpet cleaner with a hybrid tank that we’ve tried, so we can’t hold it against the 47A23 in particular. We’d also have preferred a lighter cleaner (at 32 pounds, it’s not something we’d like to tote up and down stairs all day) as well as a longer cord (22 feet goes by more quickly than you think). Besides these issues, however, we were largely satisfied.

Pros and Cons of the Bissell DeepClean Premier Pet Carpet Cleaner 17N4.

We were almost as happy with the Bissell 1794 as we’d been with the 47A23. Like the 47A23, it also featured the heatwave technology to keep your clean water at a constant temperature while cleaning; we don’t find this to be a particularly essential feature, but we won’t complain about its inclusion. We were more interested in the cleaning prowess, and are happy to report that it did almost as good of a job on most carpet surfaces as did the 47A23.

In fact, if you were willing to give any surface an extra pass, it definitely equaled the 47A23 in cleaning abilities. The difference, however, is that there were a number of surfaces where we felt we didn’t need to spend quite as much time moving back and forth when using the 47A23 as we did when using the 17N4. We were also happy with its abilities to remove water from carpets; it took time, but if we worked slowly and made about 2-3 passes over a given area, we’d be able to walk on the carpet in socks without fear after around 3 hours.

Conclusion – which carpet cleaner cleans better for $200?

While we were largely happy with the performance of both the Bissell 47A23 Proheat and the Bissell DeepClean 17N4, we ultimately preferred the 47A23 due to its greater cleaning abilities. In particular, we didn’t feel we needed to make as many passes over a given carpet to get the same results with the 47A23 as we did when using the 17N4.

You can buy the Bissell 47A23 Proheat on Amazon here and the Bissell DeepClean 17N4 here.

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