In general, upright vacuums tend to be bigger and more powerful than stick vacuums. But, the latter are more lightweight and maneuverable, and are often cordless and more convenient for anyone living in a small space or with lots of stairs. The Dyson V8 is one of the brand’s most affordable cordless vacuum models, yet it still delivered the performance you’d expect from the brand.
You can easily remove its single-roller brush bar (no tools required) to clear out tangled hair, and the brush bar is surprisingly versatile, working as well on rugs as on bare floors. Designed to deep-clean rugs and carpet, the V12’s Motorbar cleaner head has tooth-like rubber vanes that, Dyson claims, automatically clear wrapped hair during cleaning. In our testing, the head readily captured 6-inch strands of hair, but the brush was less effective with 18-inch-long hair. (You can remove the brush, and you can cut off long locks with scissors or a box cutter.) On bare floors, the Motorbar head efficiently cleaned baking soda and seeds, but it tended to snowplow Cheerios. To get started, we hauled in 15 of the latest models from leading vacuum brands with high user ratings and reviews and ran them through a series of tests designed to measure overall proficiency. We also tested cordless vacuums at a range of prices to see how much of a difference you can expect when you opt for a pricier model over a budget pick.
Some Shark vacuums are equipped with a detachable canister that adds “lift-away” functionality to the machine. This is useful if you want to do a lot of above-floor cleaning, such as removing dust or debris from stairs, ceilings, and upholstery. Our best overall pick, the Shark NV360 Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe Upright Vacuum, has a detachable canister that makes quick work of cleaning stairs and upholstery. To make use of this feature, just remove the detachable pod, and carry it with you (or set it on the floor, like when you’re working up or down stairs).
Engineered in Germany, Miele takes canister vacuuming to a whole new level. The Miele-Made 1200 W Vortex Motor achieves world-class cleaning performance with powerful, yet adjustable shark stick vacuum suction. The vacuum comes standard with a large electrobrush floorhead, great for wall-to-wall carpeting and area rugs, and a gentle parquet twister brush for smooth floors.
This piece is smaller than your main vacuum head, but features a rotating brush for grabbing pet hair. If your couch and upholstery collect fur and hair, it can be a game-changer. The swivel head makes the vacuum easy to maneuver under low pieces of furniture, and the whole machine is also light enough to easily transcend a flight of steps at under 15 pounds. Shark is a good household manufacturer that produces items like mops and irons alongside vacuums at different price points and styles.
Because of this, I have personally dubbed the Fluffy Optic cleaning head as my Dyson’s full time cleaning head regardless of floor type, despite the fact that it’s tailored to hard floors. Marked $101 off, this robot vacuum takes the hard work out of keeping your floors clean. With intelligent navigation that helps it move throughout your space while avoiding furniture, walls and staircases, it’s capable of cleaning carpets and hard floors alike.
At a price of $400 (or less, if you catch a sale), it offers a high level of performance at a strong value relative to the competition, which is a large part of the reason why it’s our top recommended cordless vacuum. The table below tells you the average percentage of sand each vacuum was able to remove from each of our three test surfaces. Sucking sand out of carpets like those is a real challenge — most of the vacuums we test can’t even remove 80% of the stuff when all is said and done. If you have thick carpets like those in your home, it’s definitely worth a look. To simulate small particle size, we use a mix of play sand and landscaping sand.
This model runs for about 35 minutes in eco mode, enough time to vacuum a small or medium-size apartment and plenty of time for quick cleanups. Its battery recharges in under two hours—faster than that of any other vacuum we tested in our latest round. The V8 Absolute is less powerful than the V12 Detect Slim and the V15 shark pet vacuum Detect, but it’s still a good value. Its bin capacity lies between that of the other two models, and it comes with many useful attachments. In addition to suffering from battery failure on occasion, cordless stick vacs are prone to the same clogs, cracked plastic, and other mechanical failures as plug-in machines.
Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks, so you’ll want to consider which type will work best for your lifestyle. For instance, upright and canister models typically offer more suction power, while stick and handheld options are lightweight and portable. Robot vacuums are autonomous, offering hands-free cleaning on a set schedule, but they don’t deliver the same level of cleaning as a full-size vacuum. If you’re tired of dragging out a full-size vacuum to suck up pet hair every few days, the Shark Pet Pro Cordless Vacuum is a great option for your home.
Save on Shark’s powerful robot vacuum with a HEPA filtration system that captures pet hair, dust mites, dander and allergens with ease. However, there is one area where they struggle to match corded vacuums, and that’s the capacity of the dust canister. On average, cordless vacuums have dust canisters with a capacity of anywhere between 0.2 and 0.75 liters, whereas traditional corded vacuums, whether it’s upright or a canister, have a capacity of anywhere between 1 and 2 liters. However, it’s also extremely expensive compared to other cordless vacuums and it’s much bulkier. We’ve tested all 10 of the featured cordless vacuum cleaners in this guide to challenge them for dirt pick-up, battery runtime and versatility across various surfaces throughout the home.