- 750 Watt motor
- 1.3l capacity
- 6.7kg weight
- 10m reach
- HEPA filtration
Stood alongside the Dyson below, the Shark looks – and feels – a bit of a bruiser. But while it’s visibly taller and bulkier, its lower centre of gravity actually means it’s better balanced when being pushed around.
That bulk also hides Shark’s party trick, its ‘Powered Lift-Away’ facility. Pressing a button on the carry handle at the top of the cylinder allows the entire section – weighing just 3.1kg on its own – to be lifted clear of the main body. You can then plug the same hose, handle and attachments into that and carry it around to clean trickier areas such stairs, for example.
Nothing too remarkable in itself, but there’s more. Once you’ve removed the cylinder, you can also detach the powered floor head and re-attach it to the main handle assembly. You’re then left with a vastly more manoeuvrable vacuum cleaner, not least because it allows you to lay the handle, tube and floor head virtually flat. Do that and you can sweep the farthest areas under, for instance, a bed, without the cylinder limiting your reach. And you even get in-built headlights to show you where you’re cleaning.
Unusually, both the main power switch and the three-position mode floor-type selector are handily placed at the top of the handle, rather than the typical locations on top of the cylinder and floor head, respectively. Like the Dyson, however, the 8m cable is attached on the right side of the cylinder which feels counter-intuitive for a right-handed user (but great if you’re a ‘leftie’).
As you’d expect, you get some attachments as standard, namely a (disappointingly short) crevice tool, a multi-vaned, mini-pet (hair) tool and two-in-one brush. The Stratos promises to remove 99.9 per cent of dust & allergens while cleaning, but goes further in that. It can actively scent the air inside the cylinder, courtesy of an anti-odour cartridge, located in the floor head. It worked nicely – you can manually adjust the intensity of the de-odorising effect – but you’ll need to stump up £14.99 for a twin-pack of cartridges when it needs replacing.
Used as a conventional upright, the Shark puts in a jaw-droppingly impressive performance. It sailed through our flour and dirt cleaning tests, leaving hardly anything behind on short pile carpet and vinyl tiles after a single pass. A second pass scooped up everything, while using the ‘thick carpet/rug setting on the floor head extracted impressive amounts of dirt from deep pile carpet.
The design of the floor head means that it doesn’t get as close to the edge of a skirting as, say, the left-hand side of the Dyson’s floor head, but that’s the only real criticism. As far as pet hair collection is concerned, the Stratos doesn’t put a foot wrong, resolutely avoiding clogging, either when used in upright mode or with the mini-pet tool attached.
It may not be the lightest of uprights but this versatile machine is supremely effective when it comes to keeping a pet-owner’s household shipshape and clean. At its current price, it represents amazing value, whichever way you look at it.