For busy families and homes with lots of hard flooring, it can be a time saver and offer peace of mind by removing one chore from your weekly routine. The cleaning performance is impressive, and the vacuums feel great to use. The filtration is excellent, which is good for everyone, but especially great for people with asthma or allergies. Buying a plug-in vacuum is like shark dustbuster saving for retirement or sorting your laundry—a boring but sensible endeavor that should pay off in the long run. Cordless sticks and robot vacuums are convenient, but the best plug-in uprights and canisters clean better and last longer. We’ve tested dozens of plug-in vacuums over the years, and the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 has been our favorite since 2014.
A tank for Shark cleaning solution, which is included in your purchase, is built into its body. The floor head uses replaceable mop pads that include a unique chamber for collecting debris, and it features an easy-release button so you don’t have to touch the dirty pad when your cleaning session is done, too. Nevertheless, once this vacuum was performing well, we found it excelled at picking up all types of debris and no hair was caught in the brush roller. The swivel head makes it easy to maneuver under lower pieces of furniture and it’s lightweight enough to easily transcend a flight of steps. Because of the small dust bin size, we think this vacuum is more suited for apartments or townhomes, but it could also serve as a quick mess-cleaning tool in busy households. Lastly, if you’re looking for an inexpensive canister vacuum with only a bare floor head, the Bissell – Zing is our budget pick.
The Apex also features Shark’s new “Zero-M” system, which actively combs out hairs so they don’t get wrapped around the roller. This makes the Shark – Apex the best canister vacuum for pet hair, or even for extra-long human hair. You’ll only ever catch a few strands on the roller, which eliminates the maintenance needed on traditional roller designs.
The vacuum can be purchased with a single brushroll cleaner head (the model we have) or with a dual brushroll cleaner head. The Vertex cleaner head is similar to the cleaner head provided with the Canister Pet but it also shark pet hair vacuum has a soft brushroll at the very front of the cleaner head. We’ve worked with Vertex models before (Shark Vertex Upright revew, Shark Vertex Cordless review) and they tend to perform well on both carpet and hard floors.
We look forward to testing Miele’s Boost CX1, a bagless canister vacuum designed as a compact option for people living in small spaces. To test for ease of maintenance, we tried to clog and tangle each machine with shredded copy paper, Cheerios, Lego pieces, and toy dinosaurs. We also took apart a few of the vacuums to see how difficult it would be to unclog them. We found that the cheaper vacuums we tested came apart in fewer places, making it harder to access clogs.