Shark Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner with Anti Hair Wrap, Up to 40 mins run-time, Flexible Vacuum Cleaner with LED Lights, Crevice Tool and Upholstery Tool, Electric Blue IZ202UK

Product Information

Shark calls its folding extension wand “Flexology”, and it’s worth giving a name to. A button on the wand releases a catch that lets the wand flex at knee height. This can be used to slide the floor head under low furniture, or to fold it right over to reduce the height of the device to 680mm for storage – a state in which it can also support itself in an upright position. If manoeuvrability is key for you, the Eufy HomeVac S11 Infinityand Dyson Micro 1.5kgare both much easier to handle.

I was a little concerned that ditching the fluffy roller would be a compromise too far in our tests, and that the hard floor results would be some way behind what we’ve seen from Shark’s best models.

It performed excellently in our at-home tests, and the new detection features go a long way to improve day-to-day vacuuming sessions. I'm a huge fan of the stand system too, even though it comes at an additional price, and would be keen to try out the self-emptying bin system next, which seems like a lifesaver. There's no doubt that our testing process proved that this vacuum is worth the large price tag that it carries. Even if you don't have pets, the ease with which this vacuum does away with hair is astounding, and our Ecommerce Editor Molly found that it was unmatched when it came to suction. Anti Hair Wrapoffers a self-cleaning brush roll thanks to an in-built comb. This removes pet and human hair before it gets the chance to get tangled.

As with other Shark Flexology vacuums, the extension wand has a bend in it, which serves two purposes. Release the clasp on the wand and you can clean under low-lying furniture without having to get on your hands and knees. The bright LED headlamps on the front help you see what you’re doing. Second, fold the wand all the way over and, cleverly, the vacuum supports its own weight, allowing it to be stored temporarily in a corner without you having to lean it against a wall. It’s worth noting how good the anti-hair wrap technology is, too. The soft roller has a comb that cleans itself as it goes, catching long hairs and sending them into the vacuum before they can wrap around the roller. Despite being tested in areas that collect a lot of hair, such as around dressing tables, the rollers on our test unit stayed tangle-free. The Shark Anti Hair Wrap Cordless Upright Vacuum Cleaner with PowerFins, Powered Lift-Away & TruePet has absolutely everything you need (as you might've guessed from the name) to stay on top of the busiest of homes, in a cordless model. The second was the wealth of new technologies that Shark boasted about with this vacuum when we got a first glimpse of it at IFA 2023. This vacuum has four detection technologies so that cleaning your home is more thorough than ever. When we were testing, we found dealing with high-traffic areas much easier thanks the the amped up suction and the FloorDetect technology makes transitioning into different rooms across your home much easier too. Although it is a corded vac, the 9 metre-long cable will give you an adequate radius to work your way around the various floors in the home. Molly lives in a two-bedroom flat, and never found the cord to be an issue, with space to get to all of the rooms she needed to.

The Shark cordless did a fair job in our standard cleaning tests. On hard floor, it collected 24g of a 26g spillage of Cheerios. The missing Cheerios were sent flying across the room by the enthusiastic soft roller, but that was nothing that couldn’t be sorted out by hunting them down afterwards. Flexology means your vacuum can be pivoted under furniture using an elbow hinge at the centre of the tube. It saves you from bending and reaching, but it's only available on cordless vacuums. We were very excited to test the brand new Shark Detect Pro for a few reasons. The first is that it's unbelievably lightweight, at just 2.76kg, so your days of lugging around a heavy vacuum are behind you.

One of the attachments which comes with this Shark vacuum is the pet tool. As with many of the best vacuum cleaners for pet hair, it's was excellent at drawing out embedded hair from rugs, blankets and anywhere else your four-legged-friend likes to reside. Overall, this is a strong contender for those looking for a large capacity Shark vacuum that they can rely on. There’s a battery attached to the base of the handle, which can be removed easily. The port for the supplied charging cable is on the end, and you can charge it while connected to or separated from the rest of the equipment. There are three LEDs on the side of the battery that show whether the battery has full charge, medium charge or low charge. If the last light starts to flash, it’s an indication it’s nearly empty. In testing, our suction test confirmed the similarity between the two models, with the handheld unit producing almost the same suction results as the IZ201UK, as you can see in the chart below.

Spoiler alert: I shouldn’t have worried. Shark has left plenty of space at the front to allow larger particles through, and although it doesn’t trap them quite as well as the best fluffy rollers, it performed surprisingly well. We really like to get a hands-on experience with the products which we feature across Ideal Home, in line with our testing protocol. It means that we get tounderstand more about whatyouare getting for your money. There's a suite of onboard tools which can be used with this vac too, Molly's favourite being the Anti Hair Wrap Power Tool which is great for upholstery and smaller jobs. How we test Shark vacuums