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

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. 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.

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. The relatively new innovation to Shark's portfolio is Flexology which allows the wand to go from straight to angled, is a feature which we highly rate. It means that you can get your vac under the beds and various items of furniture that are raised up on legs. What we found, however, is that the floorhead wasn’t as easy to direct accurately as is the case when it’s used with the rigid wand. The device has a couple of main controls. A thumb switch on the top is used to turn the vacuum on and off and swap between hard floor and carpet modes. With carpet mode selected, the rollers spin faster to agitate the fibres more and clean deeper into the carpet. This doesn’t alter the suction, but you can give it a boost by pulling the trigger that sits just in front of your forefinger as you hold the handle. However, the battery life isn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary. Shark quotes it at 40 minutes, although this is without the motorised floor head attached. In our tests, we found it lasted 22mins 34secs when tested on carpet with the motorised head attached, falling to 16mins 10secs in Boost mode. Our flour spillage test is tougher and I was conscious that this vacuum doesn’t have the strongest suction, but perhaps the brush and fin combo on the brush bar helped here, because it performed very well.READ NEXT: The best cordless vacuum cleaners to buy today Shark Anti Hair Wrap with Flexology IZ201UKC review: How well does it clean? Shark claims that it has all the power of a corded vacuum cleaner but in cordless form, and after testing we couldn't agree more. It's got DuoClean which makes switching modes immensely straightforward, and the controls make it easy to see how much battery you have left. To charge, simply lift out the battery on the side of the dust tank and pop it into its charging port. The Shark IZ201UK Cordless Vacuum Cleaner is one of the best vacuum cleaners for pet hairon the market. It has a 0.7 litre dustbin which, while not the largest, is adequate for cleaning most homes without the need to empty mid-way. We also enjoy how lightweight it is, at just over 4 kg. Speaking of the battery, it performed well in our tests, outlasting the one on the previous model. This might be an improvement in battery technology, or it might be because it’s now only powering a single roller. 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.

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. In terms of attachments, it’s limited to the bare essentials. You get a crevice tool and a simple upholstery tool, the latter being just a funnel with felt-like brushes around the edge to tease hair and other fine debris out of your furniture.

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. Switching between carpet and had floors is very easy thanks to the DuoClean brushrolls, which switch over with the touch of a button. It's also possible to go between three power levels, although we found the lowest level perfectly strong enough for the majority of tasks.

Moving down to the floor head, you can finally see where the main change between the IZ201UK and the IZ202UK has happened. Whereas the previous model used Shark’s dual roller system to house both a fluffy roller and a brush bar, the IZ202UK has a single brush bar. It’s a sophisticated roller, though, with both bristles and stiff fins interspersed along its length. It also has an anti-hair wrap system to stop long hair getting tangled along its length. 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. 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. 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. 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.DuoCleanis Shark's self-adjusting brush roll that automatically adapts to carpet and hard floor without you having to switch over. 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.