S.F.
My experience is similar to others'. I had one and used it for about 4 months before it died. My mother bought me a new "extended" battery for it as a gift. It still wouldn't hold a charge as long as it should have to really do the job, so I think the base must be defunct. Wish I'd figured that out earlier, so I could have gotten a new one thru the company.
As to the ones that "find" their base, ours never did find it and mount itself without help from us. A friend whose parents had one said the same: Theirs found the base once or twice, but that was pretty much it. I LOVED that I could walk away and let it go to do it's thing. As a vacuum it worked ok, but like anything else, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is....
I don't know how picky you are about getting your floors clean, but if you want it to get EVERYTHING off the floor and out of the corners each time you use it, you'll have to do quite a bit of prep work:
-move all chairs up off the floor or out of the room (it "bumps" into things and changes direction until it navigates around it, which = time = reduced battery for the rest of the area)
-pick up all rugs (it sometimes gets stuck on the corners)
-make sure there is nothing against the walls near the corners that will prevent its width from getting in there (it's a little over a foot wide)
-if you have other rooms you don't want it to go to, you have to set up the "virtual walls" to stop it from leaving the area you want it to clean.
A little while back I bought what is my "Can't Live Without" item now: The Ergo-Rapido from Electrolux. It's a 2-in-1 CORDLESS stick vac and hand vac (like a dustbuster). I have the 12V version, which is important 'cause the previous version was a 9V (I think) and it got significantly lower reviews on most websites I read. This one has great suction, handles wonderfully, is easy to clean/empty, and the filters are washable. You can find it online for about $110 w/ shipping. I'd initially bought a cheaper one at a local store, but was NOT happy with the suction or handling of it and ended up returning it within a week to buy the Ergo-Rapido.
We have 3 kids (5 1/2, 3 1/2, and 2 y/o) and 2 cats (one is med hair and sheds all the time). Because of this, it gets used several times a day by either my husband or I; every day one or both of us says something like, "I am so glad we bought this; this is the best thing we've bought in years." LOL