Shark AZ3002 Stratos Upright Vacuum with DuoClean PowerFins, HairPro, Powered Lift-Away, Self-Cleaning Brushroll, & Odor Neutralizer Technology, Navy

Ive been using this vacuum cleaner for a few months now and I have zero complaints. Powerful suction and the liftaway capability is wonderful. And - no hair wrapped around the beater bar! I have long hair and with my previous vacuums, it would get wrapped around the beater bar, which was a huge pain to remove. Because of the way this vacuum is designed... no wrapped hair! I know that doesnt sound like a big deal but if you have people in your family with long hair, you know what I mean! Very pleased with my purchase.

The Shark AZ2002 Vertex is an awesome vacuum on wood floors, tile and carpet. The suction is so strong it will suck anything in its path. :-) Love using the lift-away with the dual-fins.

I have never had a vacuum deep clean a carpet better than this one. Outstanding, really. The features are well-thought out and I definitely like the portability and ability to utilize the handle-only and wand-only applications as well as basically having a canister-type function choice and an upright at the same time. The hose connecting to the wand is pretty stiff and does not have much flexibility which can make it a bit awkward to manipulate, but it is manageable. I have not tried the stair tool so cannot speak to its efficiency. There are some negatives. As others have mentioned, the forward movement is propelled, I think, by the strong suction, but pulling it backward takes effort for the same reason. That is a minor complaint for me considering my carpet has never looked better. I have only one carpet in my home, 10 by 13, and bare floors throughout the rest of my home. I have two dogs and a cat. The dogs shed lightly, the cat is a prolific shedder and my carpet can be covered at times by clumps of his hair. I bought this vacuum because of the technology that prevents pet hair from wrapping around the brushes. Amazingingly, it does just that as you can see by the pictures I have included. The front brush should be removed each time it is used because hair does accumulate there, but it is very easy to remove. No problem at all with that. There is a small vertical bush that gathers some hair, too, but, again, easily removed. Where hair does wrap, very tightly, is around the two tiny wheels, one on each side of the main brush compartment. I already have a Shark vacuum, eight years old, and the reason for this new vacuum was to eliminate the need to pull all the hair from the brushes, two times with each use. Getting the hair out from around the tiny wheels on my new vacuum is far more difficult and time-consuming than simply cutting the hair away from my old machine brushes primarily because of the tiny space. I tried several ways to do this and found make-up tweezers worked best. If anyone has an easy fix or a better way to take care of the little wheels, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it. It is something that absolutely needs to be done every time the vacuum is run, if you have a lot of pet hair, because it would not take long for the little wheels to stop turning. Hair literally stuffs the space on either side of each wheel with hair. Hope the pictures help anyone considering purchasing this machine. Does a great job, but does require more maintenance than I expected!

My old Shark APEX had a malfunctioning powerhead after two years of extremely heavy pet home use. I loved it and it would suck up small children if they got in the way! Couldnt get a new powerhead due to supply issues and really needed another vacuum in our three dog household. I decided on a new model, the Shark SRATOS, which was supposed to be as powerful and comparable to my old APEX. Pros: Its not quite as heavy as my old APEX. Hair doesnt get stuck in the brushroll, so the self cleaning brushroll description is accurate. It has a very long cord which makes it easier to vacuum large spaces without unplugging and replugging. It came with a separate pet hair head for the removable hose (which I never have used). The Odor Neutralizing feature was okay, though other reviewers reported they couldnt get replacement cartridges. (I havent tried to order a new one yet) Cons: Out of the box I could tell it was not as high quality, even though it was a bit pricier than my old one. Its lighter weight, feels plasticy, and more cheaply made (the removable suction wand is starting to not click back in to the vacuum after 3 months of use). It doesnt suck up small items like gravel, popcorn kernels, pet food, wood chips (or children) like the APEX does. And while, as advertised, the rubber brushroll doesnt collect pet hair, somehow it gets stuck between the front of the vacuum and the plush brushroll which never happened on my old APEX. All in all, I do like it and would recommend it but if I hadnt owned an older (by only two years) model Shark this one wouldve gotten 5 stars instead of 4.

This is a must-need if you have dogs. My house is always full of pets and kids, and this will clean up any mess on my vinyl and carpet floors.

I need to start by talking about my old vacuum cleaner, which was an Oreck, my second one. It weighs only 8 lbs, and cleaned pretty well ... or so I thought. The Oreck is old and the company doesnt want to service it, but Ive continued to use it until it just wasnt cutting it for me anymore. Didnt want to dish out that kind of money again, so I went on Consumer Reports and did my research. The Shark Stratos is one of their highest-ranking conventional upright vacuum cleaners (i.e., not a stick vacuum). I just vacuumed about 5 days ago. I fired up the Shark and I was dumbfounded when the canister was half full of dog hair, sand, dust, and red clay. If it was only about the cleaning ability, Id give this vacuum a five-star rating. But this thing is exactly twice as heavy as my Oreck and I find it difficult to maneuver. I will get used to that because of the level of clean. I also like that you can pop the canister off the running machine so you can sweep under things.

This is better than that $2 harlot in Vegas! Doesn’t stop sucking!

My biggest gripe is how short the hose is. You can’t just undo the hose from the machine and use the furniture attachment without tipping it over as you try to clean the sofa or even just a recliner. You basically have to detach the vacuum canister from the floor unit and tote it around anytime you want to do something like that. A minor gripe is that there is no place to store even one attachment on the machine. Every time you want to do a crack or crevice or furniture you have to stop and go back to the last place you left them unless you wear a tool belt to store the attachments. I do like the job the dual brush does on the floor, both hard and carpet. The soft brush does a really nice job on the wood floors. And it does pick up the pet hair great, if you can catch it. This next gripe is not unique to this vacuum, but has been an issue with every upright I have ever had. The exhaust comes straight out the front. So the cat hair I was just about to vacuum up all the sudden is no longer there It may be more noticeable with this vacuum because it is so powerful. If it is creating a strong suction because it is moving a lot of air, that air has to go somewhere. But why does it have to go out the front. I cant be the only one who has noticed this. Why cant the designers vent it out the back or something. Like I said, this is not unique to this vacuum, they all seem that way. Finally, the dust bin is really skinny and hair gets stuck up at the top ( I have many pets), and I have to go get my back scratcher to teach up and dislodge it to get it out of the bin.

I dropped my original Dyson DC07 Animal vacuum on my tile floor enough times that Ive broken several important plastic bits (the latches for the dustbin, for example). So even though my Dyson still works great, its become awkward to use, and I figured I should see how the technology has advanced in the last couple of decades. I chose this one after being deterred from getting another Dyson by 1) the price, and 2) the negative reviews about the automatic height adjustment making vacuuming feel like leg+core+shoulder day at the gym. Cleaning floors is enough work, so the tools need to make it easier, not harder. Out of the box, the Shark feels nice and light. The weight is balanced well, so I could easily carry it upstairs without it bashing into my legs or putting a strain on my (fairly recently fractured) shoulder. Putting it together was a breeze. The pieces fit logically together and its obvious where everything goes. Out of box to fully assembled and ready to use? Less than 2 minutes. I should note that my floors are a double threat for any vacuum. I have a dog that sheds enough fur to knit a new dog approximately every 5 minutes. I am also a quilter, so my floors have bits of thread, bits of paper, bits of fabric, and lots of fabric dust. I was intrigued by the reviews that said this vacuum didnt wind hair around the brushes, and Im happy to tell you that its not a lie. After vacuuming all of my hardwood floors, including the sewing room, there is no hair at all wound around the brushes. Im as shocked as you are. Really. The suction is pretty great. You know how pet hair gets stuck around the bottom of your chair legs? This vacuum pulls that right out just when the vacuum head gets near. No more lifting your chairs and grabbing those bits by hand. In combination with the powered lift-away making access a breeze, cleaning around and under the table and other furniture has never been easier. Having the button to switch floor types up on the handle is nice, and the indicator light makes it easy to see which setting you are on. My kitchen has a bunch of area rugs, so I was switching a lot between hard floors and rugs. The area rug setting worked great. No rug corners were sucked into the machine, and the textured rugs were nice and clean in all their nooks and crannies. Im also really happy with how this vacuum handles dust on the floor. My other vacuum would certainly grab loose dust on the hardwood floor setting, but it didnt really clean the floor as it if had been swept. This one does that beautifully. The headlamp shows the cleaning tracks clearly to highlight this awesomeness. So long swiffer! Emptying the canister was a breeze. There are latches to open both the top and the bottom, so you never have to worry about clumps of hair and dirt being stuck in the corner. After I vacuumed the sewing room, I had some threads and a bit of dog hair wound around the silver cone at the top of the canister. I simply popped open the top latch and lifted them out. They werent stuck to the cone or anything, just pressed up against it. Easy as pie. (Mmm ... pie). I also need to mention that its quiet. Much, much quieter than my Dyson, which was unexpected. My dog hates the vacuum with a passion, and he stopped barking at this one after just a minute or so because it just didnt sound that scary. The only time it was loud was when I put the small head attachment on the hose end to clean the pet bed. The sound then is louder and higher pitched, presumably because theres a lot of air being sucked through a smaller space. Still ... overall, its nice and quiet. I try to write a balanced review, so Im thinking hard about negatives ... but so far I just dont have any. No retractable cord, maybe? I dont really care about such things, but if its important to you ... this machine doesnt have one. But ... the winding spot for the cord is on the side and out of the way of everything. You can still remove the canister for emptying if you forget to do it until after you have wound the cord ... so even thats a positive for me. All in all ... two thumbs way, way up.

Im adding to the previous review. Ive now had this sweeper 1 year, 10 months. The sweeper is still doing its job well, but I have had to replace two parts. 2 months ago I had to replace the extension wand, something in it that supplies the power to the sweeper head (floor nozzle) went bad. It was a $30 fix. Today, my replacement floor nozzle arrived. I noticed in the last month that the power fins completely wore down, and a few days ago the beater bar stopped spinning entirely. Replacement past was $90. Please note that I have a large house and sweep both bare and carpeted floors on a daily basis, so it is definitely getting a workout. I still have no regrets about buying this sweeper. Previous review: Ive had this sweeper for over a year now. It does what its supposed to do. However its hard to use on stairs because the hose isnt that long or flexible. This is my 2nd Shark. Kids broke the first one. I havent been disappointed in the brand yet.