Who is thinking about jumping on the Shark bandwagon? Who is already on the bandwagon? Who did not even know there was a bandwagon?

I am in a cleaning discussion on social media and the Shark vacuums have been all the rage! Everyone (it seems) swears by them! They even beat out Dyson (apparently)! People post pictures of what their Shark vacuum picked up after they finished vacuuming with their Dyson vacuum. No, doubt, the pictures are incredible!

We have had our Dyson for about 10 years (and it still works wonderfully!) but it’s heavy and I hate lugging it up and down stairs. So I decided to look into a new vacuum, and with the rave reviews I was reading about the Shark, I could not resist!

So here is my honest, fair comparison of the Dyson DC07, and the Shark Navigator Lift-Away Pro (NV356E, to be precise.)

I could not extend the Shark wand any farther without the vacuum tipping over.

I removed the hoses and condensed them completely to get a fair comparison.

Which brings me to problem #1 with the Shark: The vacuum will not stay anchored to the floor for you to extend the hose! The vacuum is light, and the floor head is narrow, so when you pull on the hose, it pulls the whole vacuum! It tips over. It ran over my feet. I tried to disconnect the head and just use the lift away to see if that helped, but there was only marginal difference. With my Dyson, I can place the vacuum and pull the hose to full extension. With the Sark, I could place the vacuum and use the hose in the immediate vicinity. Any pulling of the hose would pull the whole vacuum as well. So thumbs down to that!

Let’s look at a close up of the hand wands. Dyson’s extension is build into the hose and telescopes according to your use. The Shark has the rod extension that you can remove if you want less extension, or leave on (which is the standard use) if you want full extension. This is an extra step for the Shark, but not that big of a deal for me.

The handle position of the Dyson and Shark are in different locations, but neither one is better than the other in my opinion.  The Shark does have a half curve hard plastic piece that connects the hose to the handle, and another connecting the hose to the vacuum. These are intended to swivel, but they don’t swivel very freely. And the created angle of these curves makes using the wand awkward and irritating. I have a very large sectional sofa and I used the wand with the pet turbo brush attachment to vacuum it this morning to test it out. Although the suction is good and the turbo head works well, the angle of the hose, coupled with the vacuums inability to stay in place, made it a very irritating experience. I could not hold the wand, and the cushion, and the vacuum all at once! Pulling on the wand caused the vacuum to launch at me and it ran over my feet quite a few times. Admittedly, I don’t use the Dyson to vacuum the sofa either. It does not have a rotating hand tool brush, so it’s not as effective at getting up the dog hair. (Oh, I have 3 dogs! Forgot to mention that bit!)  I have a small hand-held vacuum that I use for the sectional, and I will continue to use that.

On the Dyson, the wand is released with bushing this button and pulling up. It’s easy to do it one-handed.

 I was under the impression that I could remove the tank of the Shark and use it as a canister vac as well, to get under my furniture easier. I guess that must be a different model, because I can’t do that with this vacuum. This photo illustrates what it looks like with the “lift-away” function. Here, you can also see the awkward curve I was talking about where the hose connects.

For comparing the power cords, I wrapped them on the vacuums together. The Dyson’s power cord is about 8.5 feet longer than the Shark.

Now let’s look at weight. Part of the reason I purchased the Shark is because I wanted a lighter vacuum. I was surprised when picking up the box that it was really not that light. 14.5 pounds with tools and without power cord, compared to Dyson’s 18 pounds. So not a significant enough difference to be considered an advantage in my opinion.

 Ok, now let’s talk about suction. The Shark unquestionably has more suction than the Dyson. It also has a lower beater bar clearance. So the brush is closer to the surface being cleaned. This is a pro, and a con. For plush carpets and rugs, it makes the vacuum harder to push. It’s like swimming in mud…there is so much resistance! Granted, the Shark is equipped with a suction bleeder valve where you can lessen the suction on more plush floors. This is a minimal fix. On the plush rug below, I could turn the bleeder about half way and make vacuuming easier, however, it was not picking up the hair as well and I was having to go over spots over and over. On smaller rugs, it pushes the rug around. On my thin jute and chenille woven living room rug, even with the suction bleed turned to the maximum, it was still sucking the rug up off the floor. This caused the rug to stretch and warp, which was extremely displeasing on my expensive rug! So I can only use this vacuum on my living room rug if I have the brush turned off, which would not be helpful at all.

What the Shark picked up after I vacuumed with my Dyson

What my Dyson picked up after vacuuming with my Shark