In addition to brush and crevice tools, this handheld vacuum comes with a pet power brush tool that’s specifically designed to loosen and suck up pet hair. This attachment will work well on furniture, linens, and even your car seats and floor mats. We were also impressed by this vacuum’s ability to suck up pet hair without any becoming tangled in the pet hair brush tool. We sprinkled samples of precisely weighed debris samples on carpet, then weighed the bags or canisters of the vacuums after to see how much of the dirt was recovered. On bare floors, we put down the same dirt as well as cereal and tested for scatter and efficient pick up of the biggest pieces.
After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars. He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times. To check the efficacy of the vacuums’ filters, we needed a test chamber that registered only what was in the air after it had been filtered by the vacuum. It shark robotic vacuums also needs very little maintenance and has essentially no recurring costs. That’s because its parts are made to last the lifetime of the machine, whereas most affordable vacuums need fresh filters and belts to keep running well. Most of Shark’s accessories have a handy storage spot, but the various model numbers (we tested the AZ1000W) may include accessory brushes that don’t have a home.
The self-emptying dock is a game changer and we’ve even managed to squeeze six weeks’ worth of debris before emptying the dock (Shark notes that it can hold up to 30 days worth of dust). While we’ve noticed that it has a tendency to pull pet hair behind it, requiring several passes on carpet, we really appreciate the speedy clean it offers and fast charging time. Generally speaking, a canister vacuum separates the motor and dust receptacle from the tools you hold with a long hose. Most of the weight of the vacuum is in the “canister” that follows you around on the floor, so you’re more free to move around and reach tight places. But the features that make a vacuum excellent on tile floors may not be as good on wall-to-wall carpet, area rugs or hardwood.
The Shark Vertex PowerFins Vacuum features powerful suction on all surfaces, a storage-friendly handle, and generally quiet operation. As we discovered in The Lab, it has the power you need to leave your carpets deeply clean and your hardwood floors sparkling. This model earned a perfect rating for its effectiveness and didn’t cause any debris to scatter in the process. 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. All of the Shark Navigator Lift-Away models in the NV350, NV360, or NV370 series are essentially the same vacuum cleaner, just with minor differences in their tool sets, colors, and button placements.
That makes it easy to get into the cleaning head, the wand, or the hose to knock any obstructions loose. Note that among Shark models, only the more expensive “powered lift-away” models like the Apex can run the brushroll motor when the base is detached. We’ve tested the value-oriented Navigator in our best upright vacuum review and best pet hair vacuum review, but we only compared the more versatile Apex against canister vacuums. It’s still excellent at cleaning carpets in an upright configuration while giving acceptable performance in lift-away mode on bare floors.
If you need the vacuum for dusting work then you will have to ante up and buy a dusting tool. Fortunately the Canister Pet has been manufactured with a sealed system (Shark calls this an “anti-allergen complete seal”) which is an important feature for quality air filtration. This ensures that the vacuum does not leak unfiltered air back into the room.
This vacuum’s five-year warranty gives us every reason to believe it will last at least that long for most owners. Some vacuum cleaners are notorious for “snowplowing” (or pushing around) large debris, such as breakfast cereal, on a bare floor. So we used each vacuum to try to suck up a handful of Cheerios and Chex. We started our research by making a list of every plug-in upright or canister vacuum cleaner we could find—seriously, all of them, from every brand. Over the years, we’ve assembled a spreadsheet of 560 different vacuums (though a chunk of them are now discontinued).
Owners also generally think that the Navigator Lift-Away is relatively quiet compared with other vacuum cleaners. With the brush roller turned on (its loudest setting), we measured the vacuum’s volume at about 76 decibels. That’s actually pretty loud compared with the best high-end vacuums, but it’s quieter than other cheap vacs we’ve tested, which regularly exceeded 80 decibels. And it operates at more of a midrange hum than a high-pitched whine, so it’s not as grating to listen to over time. Newer Shark models with the anti-wrap brush roll that we tested sounded like a dirt bike with a card pinned to the wheel. Canisters often come only with air-turbine-powered brushroll tools, though, which means that the flow of air spins a turbine that powers the brushroll.