It has Shark’s typical excellent build quality and ease of use. It’s well enough packaged to survive even rough shipping, and it’s simple to assemble. Snap-in the wand and connect the beater head for upright use, or just snap on an attachment for handheld use.
In fact, it cleaned up every material in just a pass or two, regardless of flooring type. We found that the 1.4-quart dust bin empties easily, but given the vacuum’s powerful suction and long-lasting battery, we do wish it had more capacity. The Shark Navigator DLX Upright Professional Vacuum offered powerful suction and performed great on low, medium, and high-pile carpets in The Lab. For that reason, it’s the right choice if you’re looking for a vacuum cleaner that’ll effectively clean your area rugs and carpeted floors. It was given an overall rating of 4 stars for its cleaning effectiveness—meaning, on average, it cleaned up the cereal, popcorn kernels, and strands of hair in just three to five passes. At 3.5 quarts, the dust bin of this upright vacuum is larger than most, too.
All the parts snap in place with locking connectors, so pieces aren’t going to fall off. The only other part is the charger since the battery is built-in. With the beater head, there are two settings on the power switch … bare floors and carpet.
Don’t buy one of the “bargain priced” older Dyson vacuums such as the v7 or v8 (the lower the “v” number, the older the Dyson model). You can often find the Dyson v7 and v8 for under $400 but honestly their suction is crappy. I made the mistake of buying a v8 several years back for a second home and totally regretted my shark cordless decision. If you chose not to buy a Dyson v10, v11, or v15 because of the price, in my opinion it’s better to go with one of the newer Sharks than the older Dysons that are a similar price. So when used as full stick vacuums, Dysons are lighter than Sharks. However, this is not the case when they’re used as handhelds.
If you need a basic yet beloved vacuum that won’t break the bank, consider the Shark NV360 Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe Upright Vacuum. This model has fewer vacuum features than others, but it costs less, too. Our testing team gave it a 5-star rating for its simple setup—it was assembled and ready for use in less than five minutes—and a 4.5-star rating for maneuverability. They found it difficult to move around on carpet surfaces, and docked its rating for this reason, but did add that the vacuum is not too heavy overall.
It removed the most sand, rice and pet hair out of all the stick vac cleaners we’ve evaluated so far. In addition, we gathered insights on how well each pick transitioned from smooth floors to a carpet, while testing its maneuverability in our living room-inspired obstacle course. Our testers tested the ease of emptying the dust bins, noting if the process was messy, as expected, or thrillingly simple. At home, additional vacuums were rated on the same attributes in real-world environments and situations. Lastly, when determining the overall value of each product, we considered our entire experience with the product in comparison to the price. Our editors took all of the consistently applied testing data that was gathered at The Lab and at home, and boiled it down to the Shark vacuums we believe are the very best.
So for me, the run time of any of these vacuums is plenty – I’ve never had one die on me before I was done with what I wanted to get vacuumed. Figuring out and comparing run times of cordless vacuums is tricky because the times reported by the brands are not under conditions of typical use. Dyson v10 and v11 cordless vacuums reportedly have up to 60 minutes of fade-free run shark cordless time with a non-motorized attachment . The Shark Rocket Pet Pro and Shark Vertex reportedly have up to 40 minutes and 60 minutes, respectively, of runtime in standard mode measured at the hand vac . So we’re not really comparing apples to apples here between the two brands and neither is telling us how long to expect the vacuum to run when being used as most of us would.