Shark Stratos Cordless Review

The double brush roll system of the Stratos works deep into the carpet to lift debris and performs incredibly well on hard surfaces. It is by far one of the best stick vacuums you can have in your home.

Performance Comparison

Convenience

Our first metric deals with the unique features that make these products more convenient and easy to use compared to more traditional vacuum cleaners. We specifically evaluated how easy it is to clean areas of your home beyond floors, the weight of each model, their reach or runtime, corded vs. cordless, and lastly, how easy or awkward every model is to place back into storage. The Shark Stratos Cordless delivered excellent results and earned one of the highest scores of the entire lineup.

The design of the Shark Stratos Cordless allows it to reach hard-to-access places with ease. A button helps transition it to cleaning non-flooring surfaces and makes it a convenient model for those looking to clean things like couch cushions or behind furniture.

The Stratos is a cordless model, as you should expect from any good stick vacuum these days, which means it runs on batteries, and therefore has a limited runtime before it needs to be recharged. Fortunately, it has an exceptional runtime compared to its peers and can adjust from an eco mode with a runtime of just over 49 minutes to a boost mode for extra power that it can sustain for almost 11 minutes.

We achieved a full charge of the battery in 2 hours and 55 minutes, but we had to consistently measure the battery, as it has no indicator for battery level or charge completion.

When you're finished using the Shark Stratos Cordless, it's easy to store. You simply fold it in half so that it becomes even more compact and stow it away. It isn't a magical feature, but it enhances storage convenience overall.

Hard Surface Cleaning

Our second set of tests makes up our hard surface cleaning metric and is responsible for 30% of each model's overall score. We focused on the ability of each model to clean five different types of test messes, including rice, oats, flour, cereal, and pet hair, on a section of hardwood laminate flooring. We recorded how much debris from each mess was left behind and the number of passes required to clean each mess.

The Shark Stratos Cordless proved to be a hard surface cleaning beast, offering exceptional and unrivaled performance. It led the pack by a significant margin and improved the already incredible performance of predecessor models.

It completely cleaned up our test messes of rice, cereal, and flour in a single pass, earning perfect marks for each test. When it came to oatmeal, it did nearly as well, picking up 99% of oatmeal grains in the first pass and the rest of the mess in the second without leaving residue or debris as many models do.

On hard surfaces, the Shark Stratos Cordless is nothing less than incredible, and it would be a great tool in any home with lots of hard surfaces and little storage space.

Ease of Use

Our third test metric, ease of use, evaluated, compared, and scored how easy each model is to use. Scoring is based on the distance models can reach under furniture, how close each can clean along walls, the noise level in decibels, how many cleaning modes are available, and steering agility. Unsurprisingly, the Shark Stratos Cordless performed well, earning one of the better scores for the ease of use metric.

The Shark Stratos Cordless generates an average loudness or slightly louder noise than other models on the high setting, registering 78 decibels in our testing. It also weighs in at 8.9 pounds, which is somewhat hefty for a stick vacuum. However, its swiveling dual brush head is responsible for 4.1 pounds of its mass, making it feel and handle like a much lighter model.

A shaft bending feature is straightforward and provides a seamless transition. It reaches more than three feet under furniture and is one of the easiest and most capable bending features we've tested.

All-around the Stratos is an easy-to-use model with great under-furniture reach, although it could be more maneuverable, less hefty, and do a bit better cleaning up against edges.

Carpet Cleaning

Our fourth and final test metric focused on carpet cleaning performance. We used the same sample messes from hard surface tests, including rice, cereal, pet hair, flour, and oats. We also used carpets with two different piles to more accurately capture performance on both flat and fluffy carpet. The Shark Stratos Cordless earned the highest scores we've seen from a stick vacuum for its impressive performance and is a clear winner in the world of stick vacuums.

In our rice test, this vacuum picked up all the rice in a single pass on low-pile carpet and 98% on high-pile carpet, requiring three passes to completely clean the mess. Cereal, a challenge for many vacuums, proved to be a non-issue for the Shark Stratos Cordless as it was able to completely clean cereal from both high pile and low pile carpet in a single pass.

Continuing with yet another great performance, the Stratos required seven passes to clean flour, but ultimately cleaned the entire mess. While this may seem like a lot, it is an exceptional feat for a stick vacuum, with only a few other premium models offering this level of performance.

This model left a 1.32 gram glob of hair tangled in the soft brushes in our pet hair test. While the entire five grams of hair used in the test was lifted from the carpet, we docked a point off its score for the fact that hair got stuck in the rollers instead of passing to the collection canister.

The Stratos performed fantastically when tasked with cleaning oatmeal. It left only the finest dust and debris after a first pass, which it was able to completely lift in a couple of additional passes on both high and low-pile carpet. Our team was amazed that this model could perform so well across not just hard surface tests but carpeted ones as well. It stands out from the rest as one of the more exceptional models we've ever tested and deserves a place in almost any home.

Should You Buy the Shark Stratos Cordless?

If your budget allows you to purchase the Shark Stratos Cordless, then you need to look no further, as it is the best stick vacuum on the market today. While it is not exactly what we'd consider budget-friendly for most, you will get one of the top stick vacuums we've ever evaluated to date. It is even more affordable than some of the other high-ranking competitor models we tested. Whether you have a mess under your child's high chair on the kitchen or dining room floor or dirt tracked onto a carpeted area of your home, you'll be pleased with the exceptional performance of this powerful and convenient vacuum.

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