Shark AZ1002 Apex Powered Lift-Away Upright Vacuum with DuoClean & Self-Cleaning Brushroll, Crevice Tool, Upholstery Tool & Pet Power Brush, for a Deep Clean on & Above Floors, Espresso

This is the second Shark Apex Ive bought (the first was the green version, without the Zero-M) and now Im having the exact same issue as I had with the first. It is super easy to put together right out of the box- and I love how heavy duty they feel (because some vacuums feel cheaply made). The issue I am having, and had with the first is that it will just stop mid-push. The whole thing acts like it was unplugged and just goes dead. The first vacuum I thought there was a shortage in the wire piece that connects itself to the vacuum on the side. I took it back to Lowes and decided to order on Amazon (faster shipping). Ive had this one about two weeks, and I cannot even do the hallway of my home (not a huge space) without it turning off. I called CS for the first one and they wanted me to pay them $20 to send me a new cord - I paid over $300 for this vacuum, and didnt use it for more than a few weeks. NO WAY am I paying another $20 for them to send it out. He also mentioned that if the motor gets hot, it automatically shuts off. I dont know if thats whats happening here- but if I were vacuuming huge spaces or for long amounts of time Id understand. I just had my vacuum on for 5 minutes to do my tiny hallway and couldnt even get that all the way done before it started turning off. So now Ill have to send this vacuum back to Amazon- and although I love the amazing suction it has- it isnt worth the hassle to buy another one. I am pretty disappointed because I had so many people tell me that Shark was better than Dyson.. =/ I guess Ill have to figure that one out for myself!

Suction post is great. This is one if the best vacuums Ive used for my couch. Gets ALL the dog hair. It has great turning and maneuvering and I recommend it for all vacuum needs Except stairs.... Its clunky having to hold the can and stick, but it does work well.

I am the former owner of the Shark Rotator Pro Lift-A-Way. <--- this was my favorite vacuum ever. I have owned it for a few years and would have never considered giving it up until it quit, but my daughter is moving into a new home that is carpeted, so it turned into a hand me down. I thought about purchasing the same again for myself, but the one and only thing that drove me nuts was that hair (mostly my own, which is long) had to be cut from the roller often - so I opted for the Shark APEX AZ1002 DuoClean with Self-Cleaning Brushroll Lift-Away Upright Vacuum. This thing has great suction. I had just vacuumed the day before I got it, then vacuumed again when I got this new one. It picked up so much dust (and dog hair) out of the carpet I was shocked. It is definitely heavier and a little more bulky than my previous vacuum, but it is just a matter of getting used to it. The headlight works great, and I didnt notice until today (Im a couple of weeks in on this thing) that the part that you detach to use the hose (with attachments) has a light as well - thats pretty awesome. The roller has not had any hair wrapped around it. It did have a string that it sucked up from somewhere, but that was easily removed by using the handy hatch that sits above the roller (no need to turn this thing over to clean it). The control buttons are on the handle, up high where they are easily accessed with your thumb- the power button, and the adjustment button. All the things that detach/reattach (the hose, the wand, and the canister) are much better on this model than the last one, except the canister is heavier and take a second to get it on the tracks to remount it. The cord is a little longer than my other Shark, but both were absolutely sufficient and longer than cords on other vacuums I have owned. Would be nice if it was retractable - not sure Shark has a model that does that. Works well on hard floors, but would go with a lighter, more agile model if thats what I needed it for; Im a broom and dustpan kind of person, so no big deal there. If you are vacuuming area rugs, you will need to have someone stand on one end, because it will suck the whole thing up (or get acrobatically creative and do it alone). The area in which the vacuum is a bit lacking would be the hose, when using attachments, is so short, but I dont know how this might be fixed. Two attachments ride on the vacuum, but one of them gets knocked off easy because it sticks out away from the vacuum some. The attachments work find, but seem cheap compared to my previous Shark. The lift a canister is heavy when holding it (detached from the vacuum). I had gone around the house sucking cobwebs out of corners and near the ceiling so there was a lot of moving around - this thing will give you a work out. My other Shark came with a base with wheels that you could set the canister on and it would roll behind you - wish this one had that option. Someone in another review mention that the cord holder thing that keeps the cord up off the ground while you vacuum didnt work well - thats true. It gets knocked out of there pretty easy. It may have been the same review that someone also mention that the deal that holds the hose (like a ball into a joint) doesnt work well. Ive only knocked it loose once. The first time I used this vacuum, I noticed it doesnt really fluff the carpet up as well as my other Shark - I think it must have something to do with the hair free roller - I miss the stripes in the carpet. I would recommend buying extra filters so that when you wash them out, you can alternate while the ones that were just cleaned dry out. None of the less attractive things mentioned above is a deal breaker. This vacuum does the job.

I LOVE this vacuum. It’s design and quality are amazing. But the older I get, the more impossible it is to do anything with the hose detached without the entire vacuum falling onto my feet. Ouch! The hose is too short and too rigid. The Liftaway feature is ok but ‘gets heavier’ with every passing year. They DID NOT include a round brush, which is critical to doing baseboards and surfaces higher than the floor. No other vacuum’s round brush fits this Shark model, and no adapter seems to exist on the market (I keep trying). But it’s otherwise the BEST vacuum I’ve ever owned, and I’ve had Kirby, Electrolux, Oxygen, two Orecks, and two Dysons. It’s a workhorse picking up anything on any surface, gets close to edges, actually dusts the floor, eats pet and human hair for breakfast, does a fab job under beds, is extremely versatile, seemingly emits nothing out (filters and holds well), doesn’t mar furniture, and is easily dump-outable, which I zip out to the garage garbage can to do. I’ve cleaned and replaced the filters and roller over time and bought spares for the future, with no problem.

Likes: 1) Works great on hardwood 2) works great on carpet 3) Does a very good job with dog hair 4) Easy to empty 5) The feature that is super nice is how easily configurable this vacuum is. It is to separate the canister from the stem and continue vacuuming and being able to reach under the bed or couch. Its also very easy to unhook the hose for a quick spider web or something the brush wont get. The stem can be used in different lengths which is nice for vacuuming the car. Dislikes: 1) the blasted hose attachments do NOT stay in the holders designed for them on the side of the vacuum. Idk why this is such a hard feature for Vacuum engineers to get. The attachments work fine while in use. 2) As I said above the vacuum is easily configurable, however, there is a safety breaker wire that runs through each of the parts, so the vacuum will only run if that connection is complete. Sometimes the hose or the canister wont be connected exactly right and the vacuum wont start or will sporadically shut on and off like when you are charging your phone with an old worn-out wire. Its no big deal because once you know what to check its easy to fix, and it did save me from vacuuming with the canister flap slightly open one time. But it was frustrating before I knew what was going on and I suspect a lot of people leaving the reviews of randomly stops working and similar bad reviews just dont realize that the hose or the canister is not fully snapped into place. Make sure you hear and feel a solid click whenever you reconnect an attachment.

Best vacuum Ive ever had, hands down.

I seriously love this vacuum! It’s so easy to move around and clean! The reason I gave it 4 starts is because I’m not thrilled about how cheap the plastic is around the wheels. I’ve had this for less than 2 years and only use it in one carpeted room, and it started to crack, and each use it seems to get worse, to the point that it wouldn’t stand up without me leaning it forward against the wall. Well it fell over and completely broke, so now I have to buy a replacement part, which isn’t covered. So at least it’s only $90, rather than having to buy a whole new vacuum. Just wish the plastic wasn’t so cheap right there. Hoping it doesn’t happen again.

I bought this to replace an older vacuum—does a much better job! I love the latch to remove the dust it opens from the bottom meaning you dont breath in all the dust that collets from the top. Really good suction—again, does a much better job than our old vacuum. Very happy with the purchase, shark vacuums are great.

Im sure that given a bit of minor cyber skills you can find my review of the Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal Plus Allergy Vacuum. It was my second, and last, Dyson. Its main fault centered around the latch that held to flap to empty the canister, and the canister itself being a bit hard to empty completely. It finally dumped its contents on the floor enough times that I tried the Shark. While in the end I did not like the Dyson much, I will try to give it its due. It is a good at the basic function of getting stuff off the floor. It also had some good attachments that were at least partly well thought out (more on that in a bit). I have been a long time skeptic of Sharks offerings, mainly due to their television advertisements. the way the market their stuff does not engender trust from me, so I was ready to send it back at the first sign of trouble. But I did expect that my skepticism was not really warranted. I really think they should fire their marketing team and start over with new marketing. The first thing they should ask the new team is to rename what they now call their Zero M technology. But enough of my soapbox, Im just trying to say that all this amateur attempt at marketing hides the true value of this beast behind senseless and confusing and unfocused attempts at marketing. So Ive pointed out my two top criticisms for these two top of the line machines. Seriously. I was unprepared to see the Shark eat Dysons lunch so thoroughly (sorry, had to go there). From the unwrap to usage, there was never a point where I thought I should go back and try the Dyson again. It picked up as good or better than the Dyson, was far more useful, and easier to use and clean. The only point where I felt the Dyson did better was in the attachments, but that a thin win since Dyson chose to make their attachments harder to use by forcing you to align them a certain way to attach them. Places where the Dyson should shine, it is left in wanting by lazy engineering. It stores its hose around what you think of as its stem. You only have to lift it out and extent the stem to use it. The problem starts when you try to put it back. At nearly every point, the Dyson is a bit fussy and multiple attempts to replace the hose and stem will eventually seat it. Similarly, replacing the canister is fussy, never mind the brush when you need to clean the hair wrap. While the Shark Apex is not perfect, I would have had to clean the Dyson at least a couple times in the weeks since it arrived. I havent had to clean the Sharks brush roll at all. Bottom line for me though is how dead simple it is to empty the canister. a flip of an easily accessible button with the canister pointed in the trash can and its empty. There is a top latch to empty any large items that dont make it into the canister, and it is as easy to empty as it is to avoid contact with dust. I would have gladly compromised on the vacuums ability to get stuff our of the carpet as payment for the ability to get under cabinets and beds and such. The Dyson is flat out pathetic in this realm. The lift-away by itself made the Shark a winner. But one area I expected to find problems was with the way these things fit together. Where the Dyson was fussy, the Shark is effortless. The hose detaches from the stem, and re-attaches easily as does the stem from the body, and the lift away, and the canister. I found nothing fussy about the Shark. In the end, I didnt have to compromise. I usually vacuum the carpet twice with a new vacuum, once with the new one, and then once with the old one. While not all that scientific, I know that if the old one picks up lots of stuff, they new ones not up to snuff. Here I expected to see the Shark not do as well as the Dyson, and Here again, I was wrong. All that said, the standard disclaimers apply. This is my initial impressions after using the Shark for a few weeks. If you did go back and read my review of the Dyson, youd see I was initially somewhat happy with it, but after time I started running into disappointments and issues, resulting in updates to the review. The same policy applies here. I dont tend to wear disappointment well.

After having a vacuum cleaner for 20+ years, it was time to move on. I went back n forth of what Brand to get. I asked around my friends & even people in general. ( I really wanted this to last for the money) I have to say................. SUCTION!!! Now I know youre probably thinking, well of course b/c your other one was 20+ yrs old. SUCTION even w/ the dirt catcher is full & I MEAN full. I have several cats & dogs & it gets tiring of vacuuming & still feeling cat iitter or dirt from dog paws on the floor. I love the how it just picks everything up. & I do mean everything so watch out. It was sucking the rope on the cat condo off. It gets close to the edges of the baseboard or furniture & gets the buildup from dirt & litter. Ive even used it on my foam mats in the kitchen which it worked wonderfully & didnt tear them up. Its a bit getting use to compared to conventional vacuums w/ the handle. I will be truthful that b/c of the type of handle & the way it can curve the vacuum to left of right fairly easidly, it bothers my hand/wrist. I have arthritis in my hand & I do have to wear a support glove when I use it. Im still learning which gizmo takes the hose out... or the canister or to just dump the dirt canster. I love that when you take it from normal vacuum to hose that it has a light so you can continue to see esp. in dark corners. The tangle free brush seems to work pretty good, but there are still some things that tangle but not like other vacuums. ( rope from cat condo not good) . The buttons for less suction is close to finger tips as well as the shut off . It does have some weight to it when you take the canister off to use so its not for those who are weak. But I do like that you can leave the canister in & use the hose while the canister will keep rolling w/ you. I wish you could shorten the hose for vacuuming like chairs/ couches or cat condos. IF it does, I havent figured it out yet. I love the attachments that come with it esp the one for pet hair. I really like it for couch & chairs. I dont have stairs so I dont know how it will work but I would figure pretty good since I have had the canister out. So overall I give it a 4.5 only b/c its really tough on my hand/wrist & could be for others with the arthritis problem. Great job Shark!