Shark Navigator

The Shark vacuum phenom is something I never expected to comment on. I had a series of cheap 49.95 Royal Dirt Devil bag-less vacuums that worked decently for many years. You know it's a vacuum cleaner - a necessary tool but who the hell cares, really.

A few years ago the Dyson vacuums hit the scene and all the upper middle income people had to have one. While I'm sure they work very well, they look cool and they're European which makes them better from the get go, they're vacuum cleaners - necessary tools but who the hell cares. Besides they are obscenely priced, you know European stuff like BMW's and Mercedes Benz's are just so much better and that justifies the price. Needless to say I am never going own a Dyson.

When the 3rd Dirt Devil died we found ourselves looking at the pricey vacuum cleaners at the bed and bath store. Like I said the Dyson was ridiculous upwards of $400, but next to it was a Shark Navigator for a buck seventy-nine. With the 30% discount my wife had we picked it up for around $135 I suppose.

It's a nice piece of work. It does a great job and has some really good features like the lift-away canister that more or less makes it into a portable. The brush feature can be turned off and used on hard wood floors and kitchen tile... and it has swivel steering. Pretty slick. The accessories are fairly standard and work well enough. The dust bucket empties easily - although I recommend doing it outside in the garbage can rather than the kitchen waste basket. All in all well worth the money we spent.

I like it enough to actually recommend it and even bought one as a gift. However, there is one thing that drives me crazy and makes me wonder how it ever left the design stage like this. The hose is absolutely terrible. It is so stiff and springy that it is made nearly useless. Every time you use the hose the vacuum unit falls to the floor or hits you - or worse knocks something over. It's only slightly better when used in portable mode and that's because you are holding the canister unit in your other hand. I honestly believe the designer never actually used the thing before sending it to production. Someone at Shark had to have noticed how bad this was.

The only way to manage it is to be acutely aware of the larger unit when you grab the hose for a quick aside during your cleaning activities. I have never had to worry about this sort of issue before and I think this is a serious mark against and otherwise stellar product.


3 of 5 stars


CW