Shark Navigator Professional Lift-Away NV356E vs Kenmore BU1017

The Shark Navigator Lift-Away is a bagless upright vacuum. Its 'Lift-Away' design allows you to pick up and carry its canister while vacuuming with its wand. It delivers superb performance on bare floors and does an excellent overall job cleaning various kinds of debris on low and high-pile carpet. It also cleans pet hair without any issue, regardless of surface type, and has an onboard allergen-trapping HEPA filter

Flawless Floor Transitions: A Bare-floor switch shuts off the rotating agitator while maintaining airflow and full suction on hard surfaces for a tota...

Despite that, this is still our top recommendation for those on a tighter budget. It stands up well against other models that cost substantially more and delivers an above-average performance overall.

At least it had one for being mid range on price. The height settings are really good. It's got 4. Those self adjusters from others never seem to work right

Then just to be even more fabulous it wipes the dust from the floors leaving behind a fresh, clean & cared for looking floor. If you've ever had wood floors, especially real wood floors but laminate as well, you know sometimes they can look just a little faded or just sort of lack the luster associated with the look wood floors. Rubbing across it with this cloth the floors a soft shine that just somehow adds think the overall good look of the floors. They look really nice afterwards and I know they are also really clean because I watched it suck up all of the dirt even right up net to the baseboards

The benefit of this is that there are no belts to replace. There is an overload protector in case something gets caught in the roller. The switch is c...

The fact that not all of the attachments physically attach to the vacuum is disappointing and lead to losing one piece during a move last year. I don't want to have to carry things while I clean, I also don't want to fetch things from a different room when I need them. EASE OF USE Buttons are conveniently located and it's simple to switch the brush on and off as I go from rugs, to wood, and then to carpet. HARD SURFACE vs CARPET There are two on settings, one without activating the roller that is intended for hard wood or tile, the second that initiates the roller and should be used for carpet or rugs

Best thing for vacuums. Easy to empty and you DON'T have to disassembly half the vacuum every month to clean 6 or 8 different parts like all bagless vacuums. Do yourself a favor, buy a bagged vacuum. - Quiet

I would recommend buying extra filters because, as you can see in my third photo, it traps a lot of dust. That thing was pristine white when I started (testament to the suction power and filtering system of this vacuum). I do believe you can wash these things out, but I wouldn't recommend doing that. Just keep a couple of extras handy

Also, if you have notions of not stopping to use the tools--stop your notioning. You will need the tools to get under things because no amount of lowering of the upright part will get you under a bed or a couch. See #3. Flipside? The hose attachment for hair removal is awesome and works great, but is only as good as its reach of the hose which is like this _________________________ long

Once I hit my carpet, I knew I had a shark! I was amazed how much dust and dirt and hair came up! It was easy enough to dump the dirt bin. Attachments were simple to on-board and & convert and also worked just as well, suction-wise. The filters were easy to clean and put back together. Out of the box, it looks like it will be heavy and bulky but it wasn’t

I liked the power of it, great suction , however, it was too tall and too heavy for me. I had to return it because of that and difficulty maneuvering.

5. Hepa filter has a good seal and is washable. Dust does not recirculate into the air.

It has good power and uses hepa bags for very good filtration. The next recommended vacuum is the Kenmore Elite/BU1017 it starts at $300.

Shark does kinda blow it here on the inability to keep all the included tools stored on-board the vacuum, which for such a well executed device in almost every other way, it leaves one scratching wondering how they missed something so obvious? The Lift - Away model I purchased came with the powered brush roll, a nifty piece of simple engineering that uses all that suction the Shark has on tap to pull hard enough that it spins a sort of turbine inspired fan wheel inside the powered brush roller body that spins the 4" wide brush via a belt attached to the turbine fan. Along with the Shark exclusive Lift-Away cannister feature, this combo tackles stairs in a manner the Dyson simply cannot do. The only drawback to this otherwise excellent addition is the 4" wide brushroll, which much like its big brother main brushroll, they could both benefit greatly by the addition of an extra 2-3 inches. But who among us couldn't, right? Perhaps Shark thought of these minor insufficiencies in the design, which benefits again over the Dyson by being some 5+ pounds lighter than the 19

Someone complained about it being hard to hold on to because of that power, but I'm a relatively strong girl and I don't mind getting a workout while I vacuum. I just want to know why in this day and age when there are so many innovative and intelligent designers we can't get the hand tools right on a vacuum? I mean, does the company even care what it is like to use that short hose? Do any of the people designing the vacuum take it and use it in their homes to see what the experience will be like? All they have to do is give some vacuums out to their employees and have them report back how it was to use the hand tools. Do they even know?

It's also easier to clean out the canister. I also like that it has a light that tells you when the brush roller is on, which was harder to tell and more frustrating with the Dyson because I would think I shut it off and end up shooting crumbs everywhere because the brush was on on hard surfaces. The cons: these don't really bother me, but I mention them for the sake of others who might have pet peeves about vacuums. The cord is a little short--I’d like it about five feet longer, but it's nothing an extension cord can't fix

The Kenmore's on-board hose is quite short and they no longer sell the extension hose to my disappointment. It does come with an extender wand and a long crevice tool, but the Hoover is still better for attachment mode.