Customer Rating: - What A Sander Should Be
Yeah, this is the definately sander to own (or equivalently the PC brand, which is also good).
Aside from the effectiveness of the machine itself as a sander, I truly appreciate the instant ease of changing the sanding discs. Too many times I've changed from 60 grit to 100 grit to 180 grit and then need to go back to the 100 or 60 again. Presto chango! Just remove the current disc and use the old 100 disc again.
This sander is not wasteful like the quarter sheet sanders, where you only get one use from the paper, these sanding discs can be used and reused many, many times and always stay tight on the sander. The discs do not tear or crease when you remove them, there's no sticky mess or clamping gymnastics, the hook and loop attach lets you change and rechange discs instantly with ease-ease-ease. This aspect alone has revised my entire philosophy of machine sanding.
And those discs do last forever. So maybe they cost a bit more up front but you can save them and get every bit of use out of them by reusing and reusing and reusing them until they are totally depleted. Definately worth the extra cost which can also be moderated by buying in bulk from a discount supplier. I keep my used discs in a 5 1/4 floppy disk strorage box, fits perfectly and prevents curling.

One criticism of the unit though, the "rubber" base pad does not last forever, mine just plain disintergrated after about four years and I had to replace it for about $20. But even though I grumbled about that I'm still very keen on this sander.
Also, I have the older model with the plastic dust collector which I think was better than the cloth bag.
In short, its the best, and most cost effective, sanding investment I ever made and I should have bought one of these years before.

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Customer Rating: - Wasteful and needlessly expensive
Compared to a 1/4 sheet sander, this "hook & loop" sander is an environmental and economic folly. The sandpaper costs around three times as much as standard sheet-cut paper, and the throw-away paper itself uses more material - one half of the 'hook and loop' fasteners. This sander will cost you a lot more to use than a comparable 1/4 sheet sander, and it will contribute needless extra waste to our already strained environment. I'm using a DeWalt D46221K which produces great results - and does a good job collecting its own dust - without the added financial and environmental burden.

That said, I'm sure this is another reliable and highly effective DeWalt product. It's just a shame to see palm sanders move towards greater environmental irresponsibility and pricier sandpaper.

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Customer Rating: - Love this sander!
Ease of use, dust bag, easy on/off of sanding discs are all great features.

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Customer Rating: - I love this sander, it is unstoppable
I love this sander. Next to my Bosch "Sawz-all" this is my favorite power tool. I have used it on prejects that range from sanding the body work on my race bike to sanding the plaster walls in our 1903 Craftsman house to sanding woodworking projects. This sander is built to last and can be used as hard as you want. The only comments I do have is 1) you need to be careful when remmoving the sandpaper from the hook and loop disc, it is best to pull the sandpaper off in a direction that is parallel to the surface of the pad, basically pulling the sandpaper back over itself. If you pull it off perpendicular to the surface of the pad, the hook and loop pad tends to pull apart. 2) The hook and loop pad tends to get chewed up if you are not careful about replacing worn sandpaper. But that said, after almost three years of hard use mine is still on it's first hook and loop pad and is now more like a 4.5inch sander than a 5inch sander.....time to replace it.