The Shark Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe Upright Vacuum has absolutely sailed through multiple rounds of our testing, proving to be efficient, powerful, and reliable—exactly what an upright vacuum should be. In fact, it’s currently our favorite overall vacuum (out of more than 300 tested vacuums), and it’s even earned a spot in the personal vacuum collection of one of our editors—she’s been using it regularly for four years. Let’s admit it — when it comes time to tidy up your space, you might dread it as much as the next person, but probably even more so if you don’t have the right equipment. While you could opt for a traditional broom and dustpan, you’re better off investing in a solid, easy-to-use, cordless vacuum that can get the job done quickly and efficiently. With a two-motor system that’s great for pulling pet hair from your carpet, the Kenmore 600 Series provides your home with a superior clean.
She’s a Los Angeles-based tech, travel and lifestyle writer covering a wide range of topics, from computing to the latest in green commutes to the best hiking trails. She’s an ambivert who enjoys communing with nature and traveling for months at a time just as much as watching movies and playing sim games at home. That also means that she has a lot more avenues to explore in terms of understanding how tech can improve the different aspects of our lives. In this review we’ll be looking at an interesting vacuum, the Shark Vertex Pro Cordless vacuum with DuoClean PowerFins & Powered Lift-Away (that’s the official name).
But, because it doesn’t stand up on its own either, you’ll have to lean it against your furniture or gently rest it on the floor if you need to pause your vacuuming session. Like other stick vacs, you can use the Shark Rocket in handheld mode to clean furniture, ceilings, stairs, and more. It’s easy to spray the solution onto your floor though, thanks irobot vacuum cleaner to a well-placed button on the handle, and a light on the floor head allows you to see and catch debris hiding under furniture. When you’re done, there’s an easy-release button for the pad, so you don’t have to touch the mess you picked up. If we could wave a wand, we’d make it so you didn’t have to hold down the power switch while it’s in use.
Some upright models automatically adjust the height of the nozzle to accommodate different flooring types while others need to be manually adjusted. They usually come with an onboard hose, wands and attachments for cleaning above the floor or into tight spaces. bissell crosswave cordless Uprights usually provide the best cleaning performance on deep-pile carpets. This machine left my hard floors cleaner and drier than any other mop vac I tested, and it runs for 40 minutes on a single charge (twice as long as the Floor One S5 Combo).
While we haven’t tested this specific model, we’ve tested Dyson’s previous Car & Boat handheld vacuum along with enough Dyson stick vacuums to know how well they clean and how easy they are to use and maintain. Great suction along with its innovative hair-grabbing tool make it especially effective at removing pet hair from upholstery and other fabrics, though its overall size and shape may make maneuvering into tight spaces tricky. It has a strong suction that won’t cause damage to hardwood floors, and it comes with helpful attachments like a pet crevice tool and an upholstery tool.
After months of use, we found it to be best at deep cleaning carpets (it’s great with pet hair!), as long as you have a smaller handheld vacuum to get into tight crevices. Simple to use, during testing it collected fine dust from hard floors and carpets with ease, although for larger dyson robot vacuum debris, we found it required several sweeps to scoop up all of the mess. The dust canister is smaller than average, so will need to be emptied more frequently, but we found it was easy to empty. It has a decent warranty, and its battery and many of its parts are replaceable.
We test vacuums on all kinds of messes, and we test everything from how long their batteries last to whether they’ll make your arms tired. Black + Decker’s Powerseries Extreme vacuum cleaner features an angled floorhead and 3-speed control to deep clean all types of surfaces. “Shark vacuums have a few awesome features that Dyson vacuums do not,” White says. For instance, many Shark vacuums feature helpful LED lights on their heads to help you see in darker-lit corners, and “Shark vacuum batteries typically run longer than Dyson’s,” she adds. Shark vacuums are also typically less expensive than Dyson models, although Dyson vacuums tend to have stronger suction power.
It tends to be discounted fairly often, so be sure to keep an eye out for sales. Shark manufactures homeware goods like irons and mops in addition to vacuums. Their vacuums come at various prices, so you can find something that fits your budget.
Robot vacuums are ideal for people who want a truly hands-free cleaning experience, and this Shark model is a great pick. It acts as both a vacuum and a mop, picking up debris and leaving floors shiny, and it comes with a helpful app that you can use to set up cleaning schedules, activate different modes, and more. Notably, this vacuum is quieter than many others, and the dust cap is fairly large, so you won’t need to refill it often. On the downside, the hair it picks up sometimes gets stuck in the filter and needs to be removed by hand; you also have to rinse the filter every few months or else it’ll lose suction power.
Considering the quieter, cordless Tineco iFloor 3 is only about $50 more than the Eureka (at the time of publication, anyway), it’s easy to pass on this one. The Bissell Crosswave Pet Pro Multi-Surface Bagless Wet Dry Vac is a less-expensive Pet Pro model, but it’s corded. It was lightweight compared to the X7 and I appreciated that the clean water tank had indicators for small areas (up to 350 square feet) or or large areas (up to 700 square feet). But this is a corded device that simply doesn’t compare to the similarly-priced (and cordless) Tineco iFloor 3. And, even on its max power mode, it got 24 and a half minutes of run time. So, with all three power settings, it was way above average for cordless vacuums released around the same time.