The motorized brush roll can be turned on or off, providing powerful performance on both carpets and bare floors. The Shark Navigator Lift-Away features accessories for versatile cleaning throughout the home. The Miele Classic C1 is the best mid-range canister vacuum we’ve tested. It doesn’t feel as well-built as the pricier Miele Complete C3 and lacks an onboard tool storage compartment, but it’s still a versatile canister vacuum equipped with the same powerful 1200 W suction motor. It easily clears away debris on bare floors and low-pile carpets with a straight suction floorhead. However, you’ll need to pay a premium for a variant with an electrosocket that allows you to use a powered floorhead for cleaning plush carpeting.
All of these canister vacuums offer some way to either slow down the suction motor or allow some air to bypass through a vent. That makes them more versatile than even the most prestigious brands in our upright vacuum review that just got bogged down or stuck. We’ve tested over 130 vacuum cleaners, and below are our recommendations for the best canister vacuums to buy. We select these picks not only based on their performance across a variety of surfaces but also their design and price. Look at our lists of the best vacuums, the best laminate floor vacuums, and the best multi-surface vacuum cleaners.
This model has adjustable suction levels and brush roll speeds to maximize your cleaning efforts. Don’t expect it to be as light or nimble as a stick vacuum, but know you’ll be pleased with its maneuverability and effectiveness. In our testing, it impressed us with how easy it was to push across hardwood floors and carpets of all pile heights. We only docked it for its bulkier design, which made it difficult to reach under lower furniture, and poor transfer from a flat surface to a rugged one. In terms of effectiveness, it captured all the materials in fewer than five passes and was pretty straightforward.
It weighs just six pounds, has an eight foot hose and a 25 foot cord. Join our newsletter to get notified of the best products available for your home. Daniel is a Canadian farm boy who grew up to be a nerd with a literature degree and too many hobbies to count. He emigrated from Canada to California in 2013, and now writes for Your Best Digs full-time. Daniel remains unapologetic about Canadian spelling, serial commas, and the destruction of expensive travel mugs. For less than $75, the Bissell – Zing is a compact, effective vacuum.
It’s long enough to reach curtains, corners and other hard-to-access places. The included HEPA-class filtration works well enough to clean your air while you vacuum. In order to compare the raw power of these vacuum motors, we plugged them each into a vacuum gauge rig and noted the maximum amount of negative pressure made by the motors. After our pet vacuum tester’s lackluster shark pet hair vacuum experience with his own Miele – Calima, though, we thought long and hard about how to qualify value for a general review. Similarly, there’s an accessory holder that clips to the wand, so you can keep both the accessories close to hand while vacuuming as well as storing them on the vacuum. Or, if you rarely use them, the accessory holder needn’t be attached.
Marilee Nelson is a board-certified nutritionist and co-founder of eco-friendly cleaning brand Branch Basics. This vacuum weighs just six pounds, all of which you’ll have to carry while cleaning. This is a bagless vacuum with a dirt holder that disconnects from the unit’s body with the release of a lever. The Lift-Around has an eight foot hose that connects with any of the on-board attachments.
And the five-year comprehensive warranty almost guarantees that this model will last longer than anything else at the price. In terms of cleaning performance, the NV352 sucks up most kinds of debris from pretty much any surface, and it picks up significantly more on carpeting, compared with other models we looked at. This upright vacuum cleaner is quieter, lighter, and easier to handle than others we’ve tested, partly due to its flexible swivel head. It also comes with a complete set of attachments for reaching hard-to-clean areas, such as window sills, and getting hair off of upholstery. The best canister vacuum cleaner we’ve tested at a budget-friendly price is the Eureka Mighty Mite. It might not offer the effortless operation, range of convenience features, or sturdy build quality of a pricier canister model like the Miele Classic C1 and Miele Complete C3.
It comes with various useful attachments, including a crevice tool, dusting brush and a mini-motorized tool for removing pet hair. For larger spaces, the similar Dyson V11 Outsize has a larger dust bin and features up to 120 minutes of run time, Dyson says. 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.
In most cases, we buy all these products ourselves, though occasionally, we get samples provided to us directly by companies. No matter how we procure products, they all go through the same tests and must meet the same strict criteria to make the best-of cut. The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser 66T6 gets very average ratings from consumers.
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. Floor settingsIf you have different types of flooring in your home, you’ll want to look for a vacuum that can accommodate them all. And keep in mind that different types of carpets also require different settings.