Our recommendations are based on what we think are currently the best vacuums with a canister design. We don’t just base our results on overall performance but also factors like availability, price, and reader feedback. Mary H.J. Farrell is a senior editor at Consumer Reports whose real passion is for cooking and all that entails.
Some of our staff testers disliked having to use the clips to take off the dust cup. Moving up the handle, the premium features that set the Elite apart from other canister vacuums in the under-$500 price bracket are handle-mounted control. You can turn the vacuum on and activate or deactivate the brushroll without bending over, and you can also control the level of suction bypass with an easy-to-use slider. This means you’ve got full manual control of the vacuum, making it easier to move from bare floors to small area rugs to full carpet. The Miele canister vacuums are among the quietest vacuum cleaners you can buy.
We think it’s pretty cool that, even though we keep refining our tests, the same vacuums keep coming out on top year after year. For handling, we had 22 testers run each model through a slalom course, simulating a real-life apartment with a tight floor layout to clue us in on a few frustrations and flaws that might annoy owners. For example, some vacuums can bunch up area rugs, and others are too heavy or clunky to steer shark dustbuster around tight corners. Still other vacuums have trouble transitioning from bare floor to carpeting, and some have dustbins that are relatively more difficult to empty. Our testers vacuumed parts of the ceiling and a medium-pile and high-pile carpet, and they maneuvered the machines into corners and tight spots. We also measured each vacuum’s raw suction with a specialized gauge and each one’s airflow with an anemometer.
This canister vacuum isn’t cheap, and you’ll also pay for new filters and bags pretty regularly. But a Miele canister can last so long that it works out to be an excellent long-term value. With those parameters, the Kenmore – Elite is a clear winner for anyone who also needs to deal with carpeted floors.
Pickup was so good there was nothing remaining on the carpet after the test. You will find yourself occasionally having to pick up the canister and move it about. The compact size of the canister and large handle on top make this easy to do. There is a tool clip that can be attached to the wand and will hold both tools (handy to have the tools with you while vacuuming).
The setup process is a little complicated for this model, as the individual vacuum pieces are not labeled, which makes the directions slightly confusing. When it came time for testing, our first two rounds of testing on carpet and hard flooring did not go smoothly. The vacuum shut off repeatedly and alerted us that it needed to be emptied, despite having no debris in the dust bin, and it spit larger debris across the floor. However, it suddenly started performing flawlessly when we moved to cleaning our set of testing stairs.
Another complaint regarding the hose is that the stiffness limits its mobility, and it doesn’t extend far enough to reach places that are high up. Other reviewers point out that the clips attaching the dust cup to the rest of the main assembly can break off after a couple years’ use, particularly if you carry the assembly by the handle in lift-away mode. Praised by nearly everyone as excellent, this nimble canister vacuum works on any kind of flooring, runs quiet, and should last for decades. This model is great for those with asthma and allergies, but it requires bags. The low-profile head of a canister vacuum’s pickup tool fits under furniture, and the lower weight makes tight corners less tiring.
If you want a top-class canister vacuum with great suction power and a versatile cleaning head that will handle both carpet and bare floors, the Kenmore – Elite Crossover is our choice. Anyone with long hair or substantial levels of pet hair understands the struggle that comes from a tangled brush roll. Our Best Stick pick, the Shark WANDVAC with Self-Empty Base, has a self-cleaning brush roll that’s also detachable, so the vacuum can easily convert into a compact handheld tool. Speaking of vacuums with a self-empty base, this feature is also a game changer for users with allergies who don’t enjoy the cloud of debris that puffs out when emptying standard vacuum bins. Compared to the other sub-$300 vacuums we tested, you still get a motorized height-adjustable carpet head and a powerful suction motor. The small bare-floor head and difficult steering on carpet really handicap this model in most households where a mid-range canister vacuum makes sense, though.
Think of our test results as a rough, rather than an exact, measurement of cleaning performance, due to real-world limitations. For example, none of the vacuums could pick up all of the debris from the rugs we were testing on. To rid a rug of any leftover sand or baking powder in the fibers, we shook the rug out as hard as we could in between tests. We think our cleaning tests gave us valuable information, but we didn’t draw hard lines between models if their results were within a few grams of each other. For this review, we tested two canister vacuums from Kenmore that use motorized brushrolls, and one turbine-powered system from Electrolux. The Kenmore – Elite is designed to sit securely on a stair, and it does that job well.