Kärcher’s portable Wet & Dry Vacuum Cleaner features a specially designed cartridge filter that enables you to switch between dry and wet pick up, without the inconvenience of changing the filter. An ideal choice for your car, it also comes with a crevice nozzle and upholstery nozzle. Small but mighty, Shark’s Cordless Handheld Vacuum Cleaner is lightweight, powerful bissell crosswave cordless and ready when you are. Engineered with a high-efficiency motor for impressive suction, once you’re done simply place it on the sleek charging station, so it’s good to go when you need it next. Choose additional tools absolutely free with auto-registration on select vacuums. To choose your free tools, see the accessory selector page after you add to cart.
However, like many other stick vacs, you can use the Shark Rocket in handheld mode, with or without an extension, to clean furniture, ceilings, stairs, and more. Need a handheld vacuum for car seats and hard-to-reach spots? The Hoover OnePwr Cordless Handheld Vacuum is more than up to the task with an onboard crevice tool and powerful suction that ensures no dust gets left behind. Battery life maxes out at 35 minutes, and although a charger is included, you can also purchase a spare 2Ah battery to extend the runtime.
While many of the best options have small dustbins, they’re usually painless to empty out when you’re done with them. They also often feature smaller battery lives because of their limited size, but because they are best used for little tasks, it is unlikely that you will need them for more than 15 minutes. Think cereal spills and bissell crosswave cordless that dust bunny you just spotted in a corner. Bagged vacuums tend to be easier to clean—all you have to do is remove the bag and toss it in the trash—but bagless vacuums are more environmentally friendly and produce less waste. Bagless vacuums can also save you money over time, since you don’t have to purchase bags separately.
She also considered the latest technology, practicality, and real-life cleaning situations. Emma Phelps, an updates writer for The Spruce, also assisted in updating this roundup to note the latest Shark vacuums we tested that didn’t quite make our final list. 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, since Shark designed this vac with a hinge that gives the floor head greater reach. Plus, the Vertex series from Shark includes dual rollers in the floor head and one is equipped with grippy rubber fins to maintain contact with the floor. While making use of the 60-minute battery life, which is significant compared to many other cordless models, you can feel this technology working.
Here are the best stick vacuum deals available ahead of the sales event. If you can find it for $300 or less, we still love the Dyson V7 Motorhead, which was our favorite cordless vacuum for several years and likely still would be if Dyson hadn’t removed it from the “core lineup” in 2021. (A representative tells us that the V7 will still be available from some retailers at times, but not consistently.) The new entry-level model that should be consistently available is the Dyson V8 Animal. Its standard price is $400, which is a little steep compared with many other solid options.
I’ve reviewed the IZ420UKT (£549.99) model, which includes the pet hair brush and two batteries. There’s also the IZ420UK, which has one battery (£479.99), and the IZ400UK (£449.99), which has one battery and no pet tool. The base units and suction power are the same between all versions. It’s worth noting that it is a bit cumbersome; it’s got a large charging station that works best mounted on a wall and testers found it quite heavy as a handheld vacuum. That said, its “SelfStand” feature means it can stand upright unsupported and it has a great selection of tools, including a large soft brush that can be angled to get into tight spots too. We love the headlights on the brush head and how easy it is to empty the canister.
The packs are expensive to replace, and we’ve found that several brands do not reliably keep spares in stock, so sometimes the lesser of two bad choices is to just replace a vacuum that’s only a couple of years old. Plus, sticks are still prone to the same clogs, cracked plastic, and other mechanical failures as plug-in machines. So if you choose a cordless vacuum, you can expect to create more waste and pay extra in the long run. But up until a few years ago, they were all weak cleaners meant for easy tasks like sucking a few crumbs or a tuft of hair off a bare floor. If that’s the role you still want your cordless vacuum to fill, you can choose nearly any cordless vacuum, and it’ll work fine.
Not only does the upright model have a high-capacity tank to house tons of dirt, but it can also squeeze into hard-to-reach areas and capture dust and irritants, thanks to its anti-allergen seal. Depending on your specific needs, there may be one model that outshines another. If corded, you want to make sure the cord is easy to wrap around and store when not in use.