Shark Cordless Stick Review

Her writing has been published in dozens of publications including The New York Times, Vogue, Harper’s BAZAAR, Women’s Health, Refinery29, and others. She currently splits her time between New York City and Washington, D.C. Follow Mekita on Instagram, where you’ll typically find a mix of her snapshots from fashion week and various editor travels. If not, you’ll need to purchase an M18 battery and charger separately.

shark cordless

So it’s no surprise that it finds itself at the top of this list as well. A powerful, ultra-lightweight cordless hand vacuum for carpet, upholstery, bare floor cleaning, and more. Includes rechargeable 15.6V battery and a rubberized hand grip for comfortable handling. Use the Motorized Pet Brush to pick up embedded pet hair, and then store the vacuum on the convenient wall mount. However, the Shark vacuum does feature a flexible wand that is a real game changer for reaching under furniture. You can stop ignoring the dust bunnies under your sofa because Shark designed this vac with a hinge that gives the floor head greater reach.

Many years and many models later, Dyson remains a fixture of the category in 2023, but it’s not quite as dominant in our cleaning tests as it was five or 10 years ago. At this point, there are multiple competitors with top models that can go toe to toe with Dyson on our test floors. And as I side note, both Sharks have lights on the vacuum heads that help illuminate dirt and dust which is a feature I really like that the Dyson v10 and v11 don’t have. The Dyson v15 have a similar feature to the Sharks but it’s a bit more advanced with a laser that illuminates unseen dust and debris. I also like that the Dyson v15 and Dyson v10 Absolute have a fluffy roller head that gives them a leg-up for cleaning on hardwood floors and is gentler on them too.

A digital display will update you on battery life, which proved to be accurate, and on eco mode it lasted for just over an hour. The vac comes with two batteries but note they take over four hours to charge. Carrie-Ann Skinner was formerly Homes Editor at TechRadar, and has more than two decades of experience in both online and print journalism, with 13 years of that spent covering all-things tech. Carrie specializes in smart home devices such as smart plugs and smart lights, as well as large and small appliances including vacuum cleaners, air fryers, stand mixers, and coffee machines. In the UK, it’s also available with an extra battery for £499.99 (around $700) or with a PowerFin pet hair attachment for £429.99 (around $600).

With all of those extra fibers for dirt to cling to, mid-pile carpet was more of a struggle, as the A11 Hero’s sand score fell to 73%, but it still nailed the black rice test, sucking up 98% of the stuff. The Shark IONFlex ultralight cordless vacuum weighs in at 8.7 pounds and does well on both hard floors and carpeting. Like the ION F80, the IONFlex features irobot vacuum cleaner DuoClean technology, which utilizes two brushrolls to effectively clean a variety of different surfaces. The brushead also lights up to illuminate small particles in the vacuum’s path. We noted in multiple settings that it’s incredibly effective at picking up debris and pet hair. We also love that it can function as a vacuum and mop simultaneously.

We then started through the same rotation a second time and noted when each vacuum died. For both Sharks and the Dyson v10, we ran them on the low setting on the hardwoods and low pile carpet and the next highest setting on the medium pile carpet. The Dyson v11 has an auto sense feature that detects the type of surface it cleans and increases or decreases the suction accordingly so no toggling to different settings was needed. In our tests, which consisted of carpets, hard wooden floors and some high piled rugs you were able to clean the whole house on a single charge, but there wasn’t much battery left after a single pass.

Depending on the issue, having your vacuum serviced after the warranty has expired might not be worth the cash. To suss out any potential lemons, we dig through buyer reviews on multiple retailers to see if any vacuum brands or models have consistent breakage issues, either with the motor or external parts. The table below tells you the average percentage of sand each vacuum was able to remove from each of our three test surfaces.

Notably, battery life from the 20V Max XR Lithium Ion was not as impressive as the Milwaukee M18’s, but it was still good enough for a comfortable second in our testing. Due to its design, the small intake channel gets clogged with large particles quite easily as they try to get around the filter. Be bissell crosswave cordless prepared to empty it a few times if you’re tackling big chunks. Despite its relatively short battery life and high-pitched whine, the trusty Dustbuster really aced our floor-mat test. Mary H.J. Farrell is a senior editor at Consumer Reports whose real passion is for cooking and all that entails.

Meanwhile, the Tineco Pure One S11 is the only cordless vacuum in the top 5 of our sand tests that retails for less than $500. To measure the results, we weigh the vacuum’s dust bin both before and after each run. To simulate small particle size, we use a mix of play sand and landscaping sand. To see how vacuums deal with pet hair, we use a mixture of clippings sourced to us through our local pet groomer. The dustbin is a cinch to empty and clean, and the battery is removable, too.