Carolyn Forté brings more than 40 years of experience as a consumer products expert to her role as executive director of the Good Housekeeping Institute’s Home Care and Cleaning Lab. She holds a bachelor’s degree in family and consumer sciences from Queens College, City University of New York. A cordless vacuum that rivals the popular Dyson vacuum at a dyson robot vacuum fraction of the price. This article was written by Rachel Simon, a writer for Real Simple, Better Homes & Gardens, The New York Times, and many other publications. To write this article, we tested 38 Shark vacuums and evaluated them on effectiveness, ease, portability, and more. For expert insight, we spoke to Whitney White, Airbnb cleaning specialist.
An aggressive brush can scatter certain kinds of debris on bare floors, or even scratch certain types of flooring, so it’s helpful to be able to switch it off. Most plug-in vacuums (including the upright and canister models we recommend) have this option, though it’s less common among cordless vacuums. In our last test of 19 handheld vacuums, we found the Shark WandVac to be compact and super lightweight and ideal for quick cleanup jobs. The accessory caddy attaches to the charging dock, keeping the combination duster/crevice tool and multi-surface pet tool right where you need them. It performed very well in our cleaning tests and was especially good at picking up large debris and pet hair with its multi-surface pet tool, though fluff did get caught on the brush and had to be removed by hand.
We want to know how well each model picks up dirt and debris embedded into carpet, sprinkled on bare floors and trapped along wall edges. We test how adept each vacuum is at removing pet hair stuck to carpeting as well as ease-of-use concerns like how heavy it is to carry. We assess the ease of removing and emptying the dust cup or bag, the usability of the attachments, a vacuum’s maneuverability and more. Depending on whether you’re looking to primarily vacuum hardwood floors or carpets, you might prefer some Shark vacuums over other models. The brand’s upright options are largely great for carpeting, while the stick/handheld and robot options are best for hardwood.
If you’re not sure where to start, consider opting for a model made by Shark, one of the leading vacuum brands on the market right now. When you’re done, the S7 self cleans and charges on a dock that has additional storage for the included cleaning brush and spare microfiber roller. This model also comes with a cleaning brush, an extra HEPA filter, and a small bottle of cleaning solution concentrate (only a capful is needed for each cleaning cycle). The Shark Vertex Pro is really similar to the Shark P50 ION cordless vacuum, which they released a few years before the Vertex Pro.
To make use of this feature, just remove the detachable pod, and carry it with you (or set it on the floor, like when you’re working up or down stairs). You will need to cut hair out of the brush roll (that bristled piece in the head of your vacuum that loosens dirt and grime when the vacuum is in use) here and there. dyson robot vacuum A self-cleaning brush roll is offered on some of our other favorite vacuums (like the Shark AZ1002 Apex), but it’s not a deal breaker for us that it’s missing from this one. But ultimately, this vacuum is full of perks; it’s withstood multiple moves, and years later still has impressive power and performance.
The Shark AZ1002 Apex not only performs well as a traditional upright vacuum, but has the lift-away canister of some of our other favorite picks (best overall and best value) so you can convert it to other modes in seconds. This versatility means that I’m never more than a few clicks away from a canister-style mode (my personal favorite for stairs), or a handheld mode. Most Shark vacuums have reusable filters that you can rinse under water (without soap).