Shark Vertex Pro Lightweight Review

As we're busy measuring suction, filtration, and cleaning performance in our labs, the Shark Vertex Pro Lightweight has one feature that gets a little less love than the numbers might reveal: Shark's MultFLEX bendable wand is legit. Not only did it let us slide the vacuum under furniture, but it also let us store the vacuum differently than most cordless vacuums that require a wall mount. Basically, the MultiFLEX design lets you fold the wand in half and place the motor and canister over the motor head, leaving you with a sturdy, self-standing vacuum that you can stow anywhere in a closet, without or without a wall.

Performance Comparison

Carpet Performance

To test vacuums on carpet, we spread a 1/2 cup of sand, 1/2 cup of rice, and 1/2 cup of Cheerios on both a 9' x 3' section of low and high pile carpets. Then we give each vacuum just 24 seconds to suck up as much material as possible. Because there is so much material of varying weights and sizes, this is a very difficult test for most vacuums we tested.

This vacuum sucked up 90% of everything in our low pile carpet test, which is very competitive, even with vacuums that cost twice as much. Despite a bit of annoying backplow with Cheerios, it rolled over the Cheerios on forward passes, leaving only a bit of embedded sand behind.

Low Pile

Our testers were impressed with its above-average performance on low pile carpet. This Shark tended to suck up all the Cheerios and rice, leaving the carpet visibly clean. The uncollected remainder was sand that slipped into the carpet fibers.

“While the Shark Vertex Pro Lightweight is not as powerful as Dysons that cost twice as much, it's more maneuverable — so making a few extra passes for sand is simple and painless,” noted Rachael, our lead tester.

High Pile

Despite having less measured suction power than several competitors, it managed to suck up 57% of sand, rice, and Cheerios in our rigorous 24-second test, averaged over 3 separate test runs.

The Vertex tied with the Tineco Pure ONE S11 for the best performance with higher pile carpets. This is most likely due to its impressive ability to tackle large material sizes. After our testing, we could see that most of the Cheerios and rice were sucked up. However, the majority of what remained was sand, a tough debris to lift deep within the fibers of a fluffier carpet.

Hardwood Performance

The high performance continues on hardwood as this model ranked well above average in all three of our hard floor tests. As with our carpet tests, we again used a total of 1.5 cups of sand, rice, and Cheerios in our primary hardwood test, spread over 27 square feet. We gave our testers 24 seconds to collect as much as possible, and this model picked up nearly every morsel with minimal effort.

Cleaning Performance

Soft brush rollers tend to shine here, and the Vertex DuoClean system is no exception. Why? The powerhouse soft rollers' soft bristles act like a buffer when they move across the floor, leaving the floor exceptionally clean, even to the touch.

Since debris isn't buried deep in the fibers like carpet, a vacuum doesn't necessarily need to provide as much power. Although a soft roller head design doesn't provide much of a seal, pure motor power is sufficient, especially with this machine.

After two trials, it was evident that this machine is stellar on hardwood. With a consistent average of 96%, this vacuum is just 3% behind the winner in this test. That's not bad, especially considering the amount of material we tested.

Crevice

We performed our tough crevice test by placing sand inside bamboo slats to see how much it could suck up without its brush roller being able to hit the embedded sand. We utilize this test to show us how well a vacuum can handle more stringent conditions, like grouted tiles or intersections.

This vacuum made a valiant effort since it doesn't have the strongest suction power, sucking up 85% of all sand we place down. We could see it picking up little by little, so if you do have a pesky area, it just may take a few extra passes.

Edges

As for vacuuming close to the edges of walls, we tested head-on and parallel to see how close it could get while still cleaning effectively, using coffee grounds for this part of the test. Vacuuming parallel to the wall proved to be the most effective method with this model, as it managed to pick up all visible coffee grounds. Vacuuming head-on was not as effective, leaving some grounds behind. This was a great performance, and its parallel prowess will be handy if you have long hallways in your home.

Pet Hair

Our 12-second pet hair challenge is one of the most difficult tests we put our vacuums through in our lab. We weigh 4 grams of pet hair, then smear and mash it into a 4.5' x 3' section of carpet, spreading an additional 1 gram of long hair extensions throughout to simulate longer human hair. To make sure the hair is stuck to the carpet fibers, we mash it in with a heavy roller wheel to simulate the effects of household traffic.

This lightweight cordless vacuum ranked slightly below average on low pile carpet but outperformed on high pile carpet, somewhat similar trends to its carpet performance.

While its performance with pet hair is solid, we experienced some annoying clumping on the underside of the cleaner head, requiring more cleaning than we expect from the top performers in our pet hair tests.

Filtration & Suction

The cordless vacuum is a prime example of a model that excels in filtration but lacks suction.

Some vacuums can overcome low suction and remain competitive through outstanding cleaner head design — like this model — but others struggle, resulting in a cascade of metrics and tests that can help illuminate how a vacuum might work in homes. Let's take a closer look.

Filtration

To test a vacuum's filtration abilities, we vacuum 1/3 cup of flour off the floor in a clean room environment while monitoring air quality for changes in particulate matter in the air using two Dylos air quality monitors. Flour particles are very small, so if some flour escapes or isn't filtered, these particles will show up on our two separate particle counters, simulating typical dust or allergens that could escape.

This lightweight vacumm performed near the top of all vacuums we tested, successfully collecting the flour without spiking air quality in the room. Dylos considers any count below 75 to be excellent. For those with allergies, this vacuum won't make any sniffles or sneezing worse.

Suction

While the 323 pascals suction measurement in our labs at the cleaner head initially seemed disappointing, the DuoClean PowerFins head design made up for the weak suction in our real-world stress tests.

The excellent carpet and hardwood test results, detailed above, reveal how intelligent design throughout the entire cordless vacuum system can play an important role in performance, showing us that even vacuums with less raw power can still work well. From our experience, we believe that Shark's Duo-Clean head with two separate powered brushrolls is a key reason it's able to suck up so much debris.

Ease of Use

This model feels agile on multiple floors, is easy to clean, and includes three handy accessory tools.

A big part of this vacuum's ease of use uniqueness comes from its Multi-FLEX hinge, which is great for reaching under furniture to nab deeply hiding dust bunnies.

Maneuverability

With a handheld motor weight of just under 4 pounds plus an easy-swiveling head, most people won't have much trouble maneuvering around tough obstacles in the home.

The Multi-FLEX hinge is an obvious differentiator, but this option was especially good at pivoting its cleaner head when out on the hunt for debris.

Maintenance

We enjoyed how simple this model was to clean. There are intuitive pictograms on the vacuum showing you how to place the filters, and almost everything on the vacuum, from the dustbin to the filters, was very easy to clean. All you have to do is wet the filter until the water runs clear and let it dry for 24 hours, and you'll be ready to clean again.

Our only gripe was with the dual brush roll. There is a small blue button on the side of the vacuum that you push to release the soft DuoClean brush to remove and clean it and remove hairs from the comb. However, the other brush roller cannot be removed, so we had to cut away any caught hair, and we could not take it out to wash it. This is the only annoying hassle with cleaning this device.

Uphostery & Attachments

If you're concerned about this vacuum's ability on upholstery, don't be. The anti-allergen brush attachment that comes with the vacuum can clean many messes on items like pillows or couches.

We tested its upholstery abilities by spreading coffee grounds across some pillows and an ironing board, and it easily cleaned up these messes. While it did leave a small streak of coffee grounds on the pillows, it wasn't much. Overall, it's an incredibly efficient machine, lending a helpful hand in various situations.

Battery

This model can last 48 minutes on the lowest setting and 12 minutes on the highest setting.

The low-power runtime is a bit low for larger households, which means you might have to recharge in the middle of a whole-house cleaning. On the other hand, we measured the handheld weight of this vacuum at just 3.8 lbs, contributing to its lightweight feel in use. Shark could have included a larger battery to give consumers longer runtimes but likely decided to keep the weight low with a smaller battery. Those who clean in shorter bursts of time will likely be good to go.

Should You Buy the Shark Vertex Pro Lightweight?

We can confidently say that this is a smart purchase, regardless of your budget. Stick vacuums are expensive, and this one is no different. Still, it's relatively affordable compared to other high-performing vacuums on the market, and it's one of the most capable as well. While it's not at the absolute top in vacuuming performance, it's knocking on the door. This, combined with its useful features, creates a great all-around vacuum for any household. This model can do it all and is worth the investment.

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