I'm a new pool/home owner, and I'm having a hard time figuring out if I should get a pool cleaner, and if so what type. I have lots of trees, and they're already dropping leaves in the summer heat. I have a plaster pool, roughly 25K gallons, with steps and a bench, which have been a pain to vacuum with the hoses and vacum head. I can't seem to keep up with the leaves, and the biggest hassle for me is getting the hoses in the pool and getting rid of the air so the pump can suction. Then I have to stop every few minutes and clear out the pump basket from all the debris.

With a suction system, like the Polaris 165, if I understand correctly I'd still have to monitor and clean out the pump basket regularly. With a pressure side cleaner like the 360, I'd have to check on the bag at the robot end, plus I'm not sure how well it would suck up algae since it wouldn't be filtered through the sand filter I have (I noticed with my manual vac, it does a decent job at removing algae). With either type, I'm worried about reliability, and effectiveness around the stairs and walls (it's roughly oval shaped). I also don't want to spend more than $500-600, which eliminates booster pumps and higher end units.

The Pool Blaster seems interesting; I realize it's not a robot, but it seems like setup time and effectiveness would be much better than my manual vac. But I still would not be sucking algae into the pool filter, and I don't know how often I'd have to check/clean the bag.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?