Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Vacuum Cleaner review: light as a feather

When it comes to choosing the best vacuums, cordless cleaners have been a popular option — offering the power and convenience to tackle our chores. Shark in particular, has been a reputable brand to offer us all the advanced features, such as non-tangle brushrolls, automatic dirt detection, and even self-emptying models all at an affordable price.

But for those tackling above floor cleaning tasks or have a large home, the weight of lifting a handheld or carrying up and down stairs can often be a hassle. The new Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum promises to be 30% lighter than Shark's other models and is packed with all the brand’s latest features. More notably, its auto-emptying and charging design to save you the bother of manually dealing with its dust canister.

Similar to a self-emptying robot vacuum, you simply put the cordless vacuum back on its dock, and it will automatically empty into a large debris collection container in the base. It also boasts other features such as ‘multi-surface cleaning’ which uses sensors in the brush head to detect the levels of dirt, and a self-cleaning brushroll.

I tested this Shark lightweight cordless model out for a week to see if it could make my housework less of a chore. Here’s what you should know before you buy. 

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Price and availability

The Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum is available through the Shark website and is also $349 on Amazon. This is over $100 cheaper than the more advanced Shark Cordless PowerDetect Clean & Empty Vacuum that is $499 on Amazon.  

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Design

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The Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum is pretty straightforward to set up, as it only comes with three main components — the vacuum canister, wand and the self-emptying base. It also comes with two attachments —  a crevice tool and pet multi tool brush. 

Design-wise, it’s a slimline model with an attractive metallic blue color on the handheld canister. And since it’s not cumbersome, I was impressed at how light it felt, and I could easily lift and carry it with one hand.

Unlike other cordless vacs, it doesn’t have a trigger operation, so you’ll need to press the power button on the vacuum. It also has a setting button that allows you to switch between the Eco, Auto and Boost settings on the LED display. The default setting, however, is the signature 'Floor Detect', which uses the vacuum’s sensors to detect how much dirt is present and adjust the suction power accordingly. Plus, there is a handy, battery status indicator to monitor your cleaning power.  

In addition, the floorhead is equipped with a self-cleaning brushroll designed from silicone ‘Powerfins’ — instead of standard bristles. This is to eliminate the chances of annoying hair wrap, which is ideal for pet owners. 

The vacuum’s self-emptying base has a low-key design and is equipped with a  docking station where you place the vacuum to charge or for storage. Once you put the vacuum on it, it automatically sucks debris from the vacuum’s dust bin into the larger collection bin at the bottom of the base. This is then easy to remove and empty when it reaches the Max fill line. There’s also a Quiet Mode button on the stand that allows quiet self-emptying—which is ideal if you don’t want to wake up the household in the morning.  

A couple of caveats are that the vacuum can’t stand up on its own, so you have to prop it up against a wall or keep it on the docking station. There also isn’t enough space on the base to hold your attachments, so you’ll need plenty of storage space.

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Ease of use

I found the Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum easy and enjoyable to use around the home. This was mainly because of its lightness in weight, which was a breeze to push across my floors. In addition, this allowed me to quickly lift and carry the vacuum cleaner up and down my stairs single-handedly. And when I had to transform it into a handheld and attach the crevice tool, it wasn’t a chore to reach those hard-to-reach spots. No more arm ache to contend with! In addition, its swivel-head mechanism on the floorhead enabled me to maneuver around edging and corners with ease. 

Cleaning up after each use was super easy and fuss-free. Despite having a smaller dust bin compared to other models such as the Shark Rotator Pet, the self-emptying base works well to empty and get you all set up for the next session. I particularly loved the fact that I never had to get my hands dirty by manually emptying out the dust bin, which is always convenient!  

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum review: Performance

To evaluate how well the Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum performs, I tested it on my hard flooring, tile and carpets for a week. I used it for everyday cleaning and tackling different types of debris. 

My home is mainly a combination of hardwood and tiled flooring in the kitchen and bathroom. And since I have a child (who plays soccer in school!), these are often prone to daily dust, dirt and grime. As a result I’m always cleaning my floors a few times a week to make sure they are spotless. 

Turning on the Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum on my hard flooring, it automatically detects the type of flooring and adjusts its power accordingly. There is also a handy light indicator on the floorhead to show this, which I thought was a nice feature. 

Performance-wise, I was impressed by the powerful pick-up, and it sucked up debris and dirt quite rapidly. Although the vacuum will automatically boost the suction to make sure everything gets picked up, it also did a good cleaning job on Eco (lower suction) mode. One annoyance of mine is tackling the dirt trapped in the crevices between the floorboards or tiles. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had even picked up some stubborn dirt wedged in the crevices of my living room, wood flooring. 

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Admittedly, I only have carpeted stairs in my home, however, this tends to be a place that gets grubby very quickly with all sorts of debris. Plus, having a light, beige color doesn’t help when it comes to keeping it clean and spotless.

For the sake of my testing, I hadn’t vacuum cleaned my carpet for over a week to see how well the Shark Clean Lightweight Cordless Cleaner would tackle the visible dirt, marks and deep-set hair strands (and those were from my own head and not from a pet!). In fact, no matter how often I would vacuum, I would always struggle with removing such hair strands ingrained into the carpet fibers.

Once turned on, the vacuum automatically detected the levels of carpet grime, and boosted its suction to suit the task. After a few swoops across the carpet, I was impressed that it had sucked up the dirt and even did a good job at tackling the hair strands. In fact, I was pleased to see the original beige color of my stairs looking so fresh! Additionally, I was impressed that none of the long strands ended up wrapped around the floorhead, thanks to its silicone fins that prevented any nuisance, hair tangles.

The only downside of using the Shark Clean & Empty Cordless is that it is rather noisy, especially on the Boost mode. I measured 78dB when I tested it, compared to the Ultenic U12 Vesla's 74dB. In addition, you can hear it revving up like a car engine, once it automatically adjusts to tackle heavy-duty grime on the Auto mode. This might be problematic if you have regular cleaning to do, and you don’t want to disturb your household or even neighbors!

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Cleaner review: Comparison

If you prefer self-emptying cordless vacuums, there are other models you may wish to consider as an alternative to the Shark Clean Lightweight Cordless Cleaner. The brand has its Shark Cordless PowerDetect Clean & Empty Vacuum that is $499 on Amazon. It’s a little more expensive but has a Flexing Wand to easily get under low furniture. 

Alternatively, you could opt for the high spec Samsung Bespoke Jet Cordless Stick Vacuum with Clean Station which is another self-emptying model retailing for $699.99 on Amazon. Its base has a sleek, attractive design and it uses bags to collect debris inside the base, making it quicker and cleaner to empty. 

Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Cleaner review: Verdict

The Shark Clean & Empty Cordless Cleaner is a great performer and did a good job in removing dirt and grime. We were particularly impressed with the vacuum’s performance across different floor types, and large debris pick-up. 

Although it does have a basic spec, compared to other high-tech cordless vacs, it boasts all the features that you need to get spotless floors. Features such as the multi-surface cleaning is useful to detect and adjust to the levels of dirt accordingly, the bright LED floor light and of course, its lightweight design to tackle the entire home with ease. 

The highlight here is its auto-emptying and charging base, which is reasonably priced at $349. That said, it does have a noisy operation that increasingly gets louder when it tackles more heavy-duty dirt. You might also need sufficient storage space to accommodate the vacuum cleaner with self-emptying base, and there is only space to store one attachment on the base.  

However, if all you need is a lightweight cordless vacuum that offers a powerful, efficient clean, and self-empties (so you don’t have to), I would certainly recommend this model.