Now they’re good enough to be your sole vacuum cleaner – many of our overall best vacuum picks are cordless models. As a fan of Shark vacuum cleaners (especially their stick vacuums), I was really looking forward to trying the cordless Shark Hydrovac Pro XL. Overall, it’s a nice, lightweight floor cleaner and it’s really easy to use; I was able to start cleaning without consulting the manual. The headlights on the motorhead are a nice touch to help see dirty spots on darker floors (or dust on lighter floors), as are the washable foam filters.
Its electric cleaner head struggled to remove all of the baking soda on bare floors close to the baseboards, but its parquet attachment excelled at this. If you live in a small petless apartment with just a couple of rugs, you may get away with a cordless stick or a robot as your sole vacuum cleaner. But if you have a bigger home, or if you have pets, lots of rugs, or wall-to-wall carpets, you’ll likely want a plug-in upright or canister model. Pet owners will really appreciate the hair-screw tool, which is an anti-tangle conical brush bar that spirals hair off your surfaces and into its bin. As pets can often bring germs and invisible dirt into the house, there’s a precisely angled blade of light, which makes dust visible on hard floors, so you don’t miss anything.
In an ideal world all vacuum cleaners would multiply these to give an output rating measured in airWatts. Some manufacturers list waterlift (in mm), some airflow (in m3/h), some nothing. We have listed whatever information is available to help you compare, but our assessment of the vacuum cleaners’ power is based on at-home tests and expert advice.
Technicians, salespeople, enthusiasts, vacuum collectors, and regular people all love Miele vacuums. Senior staff writer Tim Heffernan’s 15-year-old Miele “still runs like new and has never had a single issue,” even after he mistakenly vacuumed up a lot of plaster dust without a bag in place. Deputy editor Christine Cyr Clisset has used hers for nearly a decade. Several repair specialists have told us that Shark’s cleaner heads often break prematurely. Though far from perfect, this bagless upright is one of the best vacuums you can buy for less than $200.
Emptying the dustbin manually was awkward and easily led to spills. This model’s 33-ounce dustbin is much larger than those of our picks. In our tests, we were able to vacuum a fur-ridden 650-square-foot space without having to empty the dustbin once. The dustbin of the Ryobi 18V shark stick vacuum One+ HP vacuum holds 27 ounces—more than twice the capacity of the bin in the V12 Detect Slim. Emptying the dustbin is easy, and you can clean and replace the filter. The V8 Absolute is less powerful than the V12 Detect Slim and the V15 Detect, but it’s still a good value.
Shark is a good household manufacturer that produces items like mops and irons alongside vacuums at different price points and styles. You can also use many Shark vacuums as handhelds, which is nice if you need to clean hard-to-reach places. If you want an easily portable model, Shark sells some cordless vacuums. However, the best cordless Shark vacuum models tend to have a few maintenance needs and can be a little more tricky to clean. When we reviewed pet vacuums a few years ago, the best around was Vax’s Air Stretch Pet, a powerful cylinder vacuum with a HEPA filter. It’s still good, but cordless vacs are taking over the world and Henry make the best ‘stick’ for pet owners.
The best Shark vacuums of 2024 are powerful and reliable, with prices that won’t break the bank. Indicates how much embedded sand a vacuum lifted from a medium-pile carpet. The Shark Cordless Pet Plus is impressively effective on high-pile carpet when used in its carpet surface setting with the ‘MAX’ trigger pulled. It can clear away fine debris like baking soda and larger debris like sand without too much trouble, though you’ll probably need to make an extra pass to clear away everything. The Shark Cordless Pet Plus is a poor fit for workshop cleaning, though that isn’t what it’s designed for. Its real-world suction performance is unimpressive; it isn’t designed to clear away liquid spills, and using it to clean up workshop debris like metal or wood shavings is likely to result in damage.
The best I tested were equally comfortable on thick carpet, wood, sofas and skirting; and the very best were just as efficient as corded varieties. Firstly, the large bezel makes it impossible to clean in tight corners and up to, or on top of, skirting boards (which is actually where most of the dust collects). Secondly, it doesn’t feature a handheld section as standard (it’s included as a bundle for £599.98). The Blade 5 sees Vax venturing into the luxury vacuum market but, although the price has gone up, it’s still affordable compared to its counterparts. How long, rounded to the nearest minute, the vacuum can run on one battery charge using a combination of high, medium (if applicable) and low speeds.
Press the button and it drives dust and debris deep into your bin, in one action. We also appreciated the fact the vacuum can stand upright on its floor brush rather than having to lean against a wall, and, as it’s just 69cm tall, it’s not difficult to find somewhere to store it. The included crevice and dusting tools are both stored on the vacuum, so, you won’t need to scrabble around to find them. Cordless shark stick vacuum vacuum warranties will vary by manufacturer and by model, but the majority of models we’ve tested will offer at least a year of coverage if not two. The Dyson and Tineco models we tested each offer two years of coverage, as does the Samsung Bespoke Jet, though Samsung only offers a single year for its Jet 75 and Jet 90 cleaners. It also has an LED light, so you can really see what you’re vacuuming.