We love our Polaris 360. We bought one refurbished and it worked wonderfully until it finally died a merciful death. We didn't worry about it, we just dropped it in the pool and let it go~although we should have taken better care of it we really did nothing but hook it to the side and let it clean.

I'm not sure how it would work with steps, platforms and shelfs as we just have a basic kidney shaped pool with a vinyl liner but it's worth a call to customer service to ask.

We just bought another one at Amazon.com for $360 ish and we hope we have just as good of luck with this one. No booster pump, no electric for this model. Hope this helps a little bit and good luck.

I hate my 360! Doesn't climb walls well, does not back up well, and does take some maintenance. Is always getting stuck on the steps. I have had two of them in two separate pools.
Any other suggestions guys?

Well steps and sun shelfs = manual sweep.
Get used to it.

You can pay 2k for a robot, but well, they have issues.
Sounds like some of you need to hire a pool boy, LOL.

I have a polaris 280 and that lil sucker just keeps going and going. I have yet to manually vacuum the pool in 2 years.

Good hunt.

I was not talking about the inability of the 360 to clean my shelfs and steps, I was referring to it always getting hung up on them.

Maybe that is because the 360 doesn't use a booster pump and works off lower pressure? Our 380 backed up well (until it died) and never got stuck. In the remodel, we made the shallow end shallower by making it a large shelf. We haven't figured out if the 3900 is able to get onto it.

The Polaris 380 needed maintenance/repair from time to time. The tail hose gets stiff after a couple of years and has to be replaced. Tires get worn, etc. It didn't need constant repair. It lasted over 10 years.

We went with the 3900 this time because they have a rebate that makes it cost the same as the 360 and I'm hoping that the steel drive chain means it will last longer. There doesn't seem to be much besides Polaris in pressure side cleaners.

I work on all cleaners and I like the Pentair cleaner better than the Polaris because they are gear driven rather than belt. they also have a bigger throat so they pickup larger leaves and such....