The lightweight design and small frame doesn’t mean it’s lacking in power, either. This vacuum did very well in picking up all sorts of debris including rice. Narrowing down the 10 best vacuum cleaners from the myriad models available took plenty of careful consideration on our part. On top of each vacuum’s features, we considered brand reputation and user reviews. Because we’ve published plenty of stories on vacuum cleaners, our staff is well-versed on the subject. A culmination of years of research and first-hand experience among our writers and editors has given us a keen sense of which vacuums are worth your hard-earned cash.
The dust canister is a breeze to empty, the motorised brush can be turned off when vacuuming delicate floors and the boost mode wowed us with its excellent pick-up on all surfaces. It manoeuvres well as a stick but the handheld unit proved trickier in tight spaces. Designed specifically for pet owners, this cordless Vax comes with all the necessary bits and bobs to keep your home fur-free. The main floorhead collected all dirt in one swipe, leaving our carpets looking spick and span, while the mini motorised pet brush proved similarly effective.
As a corded, upright model, you won’t have to worry about running out of battery power with this pick by your side. The 25-foot cord gives plenty of reach and the lift-away canister is useful for accessing hard-to-reach areas. Our tester did find the canister was best shark cordless used from the ground. In addition, the hair easily collected in the stationary brush roll in our testing on hardwood floors, which blocked the vacuum from picking up debris very effectively. The model tended to push around heavier materials like popcorn kernels.
Unique to LG is its Kompressor, a lever that compacts the dust, dirt and hair in the cup for less frequent emptying and less mess. When placed in the stand, both batteries — the one in the vacuum and the extra one — charge at the same time. If you’re not a fan of wall-mounting a vacuum, no worries here. Simply pop off the handheld top and clip it to the base of the wand near the nozzle for compact stand-on-its-own storage. We applaud the telescoping wand, large, easy-to-clean dust bin, washable filter, fingertip controls and digital feedback.
Not only does the upright model have a high-capacity tank to house tons of dirt, but it can also squeeze into hard-to-reach areas and capture dust and irritants, thanks to its anti-allergen seal. Depending on your specific needs, there may be one model that outshines another. If corded, you want to make sure the cord is easy to wrap around and store when not in use.
The Shark isn’t the cheapest cordless vacuum, but it’s also not the most expensive. It competes with the best-in-market vacuums at a price point far below. Most Shark vacuums have parts you can wash or clean, so you may never have to replace them as long as you properly maintain them. Even though some models have a small dirt compartment, they’re typically bagless, which further helps cut recurring costs. At Real Homes, we know how important it is to have first-hand experience of the products that we recommend so that we can tell you our honest opinion on where they excelled, and where they might be lacking. We test vacuums at home for a number of weeks before we write our reviews, which are linked in the write-ups above.
The Tineco S11 also uses a click-in, swappable battery pack, so the only limit on its run time is how much you’re willing to spend on spare batteries (though, as we’ve argued, extra battery life tends to be overrated). Realistically, you can probably expect 25 to 30 minutes of cleaning time on a single charge. Short battery life was the most common complaint we found in our analysis of customer reviews, but that’s true of nearly every cordless vacuum. Across the reviews we analyzed, the battery prematurely stopped holding a charge for about 2% of reviewers, which is better than average—way better than the 10% early failure rate for the Dyson V8. For what it’s worth, specs and measurements of raw power do not reliably tell you how well a vacuum works.
Although the Shark IZ420UKT superficially looks like its predecessor, the Shark IZ320UKT, this new model retains the best features of the old cleaner and adds some new ones into the mix. It also doesn’t stand up on its own, which can be a pain if you need to move something out of its path. Still, it’s certainly versatile, and it glided well as a mop, leaving our floors sparkling and only lightly damp. If you can justify the price, you won’t regret the purchase.
The Tineco S11 is one of the lightest, most comfortable-to-use vacuums that also have enough cleaning power to work pretty well on most rugs (though it’s not quite the best we’ve tested). A unique dust sensor makes it easy for you to focus your efforts on areas that are actually dirty. Image Credit The floor head has the CleanSense display on it, which shows you how much dirt is being picked up. With the CleanSense mode selected on the vacuum cleaner, it can adjust its power according to the mess, which is good for battery life, as the vacuum cleaner only uses as much power as it needs. It’s a versatile system, whining down to low power when there’s not much dirt and then up to maximum power when the floor is dirty.
They are ideal choices for pet owners and those looking for customizable features. No matter which one you choose, you won’t regret adding a self-cleaning device to your home. The Dyson Omni-glide is meant to be a nimble vacuum designed for cleaning bare floors. We cover it in greater depth in our guide to hard-floor vacuums, but in a nutshell, we just didn’t find it to be very comfortable to use or very good at cleaning bare floors.