Took mine round to my dad's today. Whilst I found the going slightly tough on our living room thick pile carpet I thought this would be a breeze on my dad's Axminster or Wilton traditional shallow pile carpet. It felt like someone had stuck it to the carpet. It was very heavy going and by the time I had done his small living room and dining room I was sweating!!

Shark need to get some elderly people to research and develop their Hoovers because I struggled and my dad who is in his eighties would not have been able to use it. Luckily he can't use any sort of hoover but the suction was just toooooooo much. It was great though in his kitchen which has carpet tiles. You should have seen the muck it had sucked up though. The Shark has excellent suction but it needs a motor on the wheels to aid pushing it because today I struggled and if I had the same carpets as my dad it would have been going back, used or not.

Yes I think they were a bit stingy with the cable. My Vax has 10 metres. If I plug it in the hall I can reach every room in the house except the far corner of the utility. Takes ages to wind up again though. Its nice to see other companies are now taking on dyson at their own game, producing hoovers with as good or better suction at a fraction of the cost. The dyson though works on all floors irrespective of carpet thickness but judging from the carpet and dust bin of both the vax and the shark, dyson perhaps not sucking as well as it used to. I see Mr Dyson is also knocking the competition now for using less powerful motors. Who cares if they wear out twice as fast. They are less than half the price at £69.99 and I see plenty of dyson hoovers at my local tip. After spending silly money on dysons I thought I would give the competition a go. Vax at £99.99 and Shark at £69.99. Impressed with both so far and would buy both again. Dyson are expensive and over-rated in my opinion and looks like the competition can make the cyclonic no loss suction work just as well.

Mainly brush off. Will try with it on next time but its so noisy lol. I got a corded stick vac from amazon for under 20 quid and that did pick up as good on hard floor but not so good now.

Deffo need to buy a decent cordless for hard floors as its a pain with cord on the shark not being long enough without unplugging. Has to be a good cordless but more importantly a bargain!

Well after using mine several times I have to say its very good on carpets but its rubbish on hard floors. Picks up nothing close to skirting and will not even pick up a paper clip which was dropped on laminate without the brush on.

Will have to leave it upstairs for the carpets and but something lighter for downstairs as all hard floors.

I see your point. Are Panasonic not doing the same with their tv's and other electronic stuff apart from their high end equipment. I personally won't buy anything Panasonic due to their association with Vestel who are renowned for making cheap stuff. The same used to be said of Vax. I have a Vax Air Reach. It's not bad. the Shark is better in some respects but the one thing you forgot to mention is Shark are sticking their neck out and giving a five year warranty on all parts. I paid a lot of money for a Dyson DC01, one of the first. I changed it for a DC07 and could see instantly the quality of the plastic compared to the old one. It was rubbish, nearly see through in places. After about 6 months the hose failed. I got a new one no probs, about a year later it failed again and then again after about 18 months. My daughter had the same model with same issues with the hose. In the end I started to repair them myself but if they had chosen a better design for the hose instead of bonding the end cap to the hose, maintenance or repair would be a lot easier. The DC07 was more money yet the quality wasn't as good. I hated the way it would follow you and then smack you in the back of the legs and this vacuum was designed by an inventor. It's crap but what Dyson do is do most things at an acceptable level. But look at the cost and he moved his manufacturing to Malaysia to make them cheaper. Didn't happen though. The Vax on the other hand doesn't smack you or follow you and cleans to the edges. The suction though on the long hose is rubbish and no good for the car. It's also quite fiddly. Shark is better and to be honest at £79.99 with a 5 year guarantee that represents good value. So long as they have the parts of course and don't want to give you a refund against a newer more expensive model then it's a winner. Time will tell I guess but first impressions of it are it's better than the Vax, perhaps not quite good as the Dyson all round but for those not wanting to pay Dyson money this is a good option.

Incidentally if anyone missed out on the Currys or Dunelm deal I have one for sale. I bought two as my dad said he wanted one and changed his mind. If you live in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire then it's your for £65.00. It's the Currys one that I have.

This is a fallacy you see with many items - it's common with vacs but applies to allsorts of stuff.

People say "I used X and then I used Y and it worked really well so X isn't working properly"

Problem is, if they'd used X again instead of Y it may also have worked well - your old vac may well have picked-up loads too - you proved nothing (you made yourself feel better about the purchase tho - and that's lovely)

End of the day, everyone's needs in a vac are different - different surfaces, pets, other habits and your expectations matter too. If you like a vac - great - doesn't mean others will. I once used my Aunts vac and she asked me what I thought - I'd thought it was light and cleaned well - she explained she HATED it, thought it was awful at cleaning and weighed a tonne. YMMV

My personal problem with Shark is they're 99% about marketing stuff they don't design/make and sell at a markup with poor customer service and the products are often impossible-to-repair due to lack of spares (which, again, is fine for cheap vacs - but Sharks aren't cheap vacs normally) - they are what I call 'As Seen on TV" goods, marked-up gimmicky short-life tat for the most part (but there are always exceptions - someone, somewhere has one which has cleaned oil tankers for a decade!!)

The problem is they buy-in a load of machines and market them at high prices - some machines are WAY better than others but all of their machines are starved for spares and other things you might need further down the line

In fairness to them, this is common with most 'cheap' vacs - even those from companies like Panasonic and Samsung - but the difference is that Shark's aren't usually 'cheap'

We used ours the day after we had cleaned with our Dyson and it picked up loads! So much for the Dyson :smirk:

Whilst it's clearly cheap, it's also a Shark vacuum which means you probably lost UNLESS it was free.

They have a HORRIBLE reputation for badging cheaply made goods and selling them using lots of TV ads and pseudosciene

They have a TERRIBLE reputation for customer service

The Reddit vacuum guy once said "there's no such thing as a BAD vacuum - just better and worse ones - oh, except for Shark's, obviously, they are junk"

YMMV

saw these on here a couple of days ago at currys for £80 and reserved 1 for collection from rotherham parkgate today (14.6.16)however just reserved the last 1 in doncaster dunelm at £10 less, excellent
just means that currys in parkgate have some stock if that helps anyone.

I collected one today in Notts...the place was packed solid too...as regards the vacuum cleaner on first impressions it is an absolute steal at £70.
I only used my Miele in our living room yesterday and was quite happy with the result...used the Shark and it picked up quite a bit of dust/dirt obviously embedded into our carpet.
Easy to assemble the Shark/looks well made and solid/not as light as I thought it would be/power cord plenty long enough so can't understand why others have complained/lead quite thick/stiff/components look well made and robust/love the fact it turns into a portable cleaner for stairs/curtains etc...superb design.
All in all a very good vacuum cleaner for the money...and with the long guarantee chucked in you canna go wrong folks.

Just reserved for collection in Swansea - Thanks

Thanks OP, picked one up in Wolverhampton.

Cheers.

seems like a decent price for a decent vacuum cleaner.

Bargain. In stock in Wakefield. Just bought the standard non pet one from currys and can't fault it.

Bissell 1539A Powerforce Cylinder Vacuum
£30.00 also good deal http://www.dunelm.com/product/bissell-1539a-powerforce-cylinder-vacuum-1000075742?searchTerm=hoover