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

The vacuum was great at picking up, hair from a long haired german shepherd and short haird jack russell terrior with a shedding problem. Even the seemingly embedded hair was easily picked up by the vaccum with minimal effort and time. My 2 complaints are: some hair got stuck, but was easily removable from the roller. The canister was small, so dumping was more frequent than i wouldve liked. (0-2 times a depending on the severity of hair) Both problems which were seemingly improved upon in the next vaccum in sharks lineup the: vertex upright shark vacuum

This vacuum is a little heavy but not bad. I love that you can remove the canister to get under things. Very powerful suction. Highly recommend

I was never a fan of upright vacuums but after hearing and reading about this APEX I couldnt resist. The power nozzle on my central vac just wasnt doing the job of picking up short hair from four dogs on area rugs (I have hard wood floors) without 4 or 5 passes. After vacuuming, I had no desire to spend another half hour untangling my hair from the brush roller. So this Shark APEX Duo Clean with Zero-M caught my eye. It arrived a day after I had vacuumed my entire house so I was anxious to assemble it and use it on the rugs already vacuumed the day before to see just how much my central vac didnt pick up. Assembly was a snap as was disassembling. Didnt even need to read the directions to assemble. BUT DO READ them BEFORE you start vacuuming because youll discover, as I did, it wont turn on unless the wand is in a reclining position. I was certainly impressed with the suction power it had. Shark wasnt kidding. Its powerful. Picked up even more hair and ground in dust/dirt on the area rugs vacuumed just the day before! The self-propelled feature with swivel nozzle is a MUST because without it Atlas couldnt push it. However, found it to be top- heavy and cumbersome until I removed the Lift-Away canister from the wand and held it in my left hand as I pushed the wand and power nozzle with my right hand. That configuration felt as if I was lifting weights but you cant put the Lift-Away on floor and drag it since there are no wheels. So for all intents and purposes I used it like I would a canister vacuum. I had a real workout vacuuming this way though. Despite the Lift-Away being detached from the wand, the vacuum doesnt get under the low-to-the-ground furniture and if it does manage to, it doesnt get under very far. The vacuum is noisy as one would expect of an upright. The Lift-Away was a snap to detach from the wand and the three vacuuming modes: hard floor, carpet/low pile and thick carpet/area rug were easy to switch. 30 ft cord is convenient! And my long hair strands didnt get stuck in the brush roller! Nice feature. Bottom line, this is a powerful vacuum that I will use on my area rugs by detaching the Lift-Away canister to make it less top heavy while holding with my other hand as I get a work-out! I will respect the limitations this vacuum presents in my home and vacuum the hard wood surfaces with my central vac floor brush attachment. Still happy with my purchase as it has lots of great features!

Incredible suction on both tile floors and carpet. Coming from central vacuum system it’s a little heavy but worth it. Bedroom carpet looked like it had been shampooed. Highly recommend this vacuum.

We purchased this recently upon moving into our new home. Were trying to keep it as nice as we can with kids and pets. This is by far the most expensive vacuum weve ever had. There are definitely lower priced options that will do the job. Just not as good as this. Maneuverability - This is a very robust vacuum. It pivots surprisingly well for its size. You really can work around corners and furniture easily. The head on this vacuum is thin enough to reach beneath the furniture. It vacuums right up to the baseboard in either direction. Im happy with it. Ease of use - The cord is adequate in length. The dust collection compartment is easy to empty. Our 12 year old is proficient with all of the functions. After all, it really is his vacuum. The lift away is pretty simple to do. The light on the head is bright enough to see in the darker corners and behind furniture. I like the light quite a bit. The crevice tool and that other thing that we use on the furniture are easily installed and removed. They both work well. Suction power- Possibly the most important aspect of my opinion on this. Im impressed. I can tell you that your carpet is dirtier than you likely think it is. Our son vacuums upstairs every other day with the exception of the master bedroom. I do that one myself. This thing gets dust out of the carpet when the carpet looks clean. Its really remarkable. In summary - 25 years ago I never would have believed that Im on the Internet reviewing a vacuum cleaner. Im well within the clutches of adulthood though and this is what its come to. Seriously though, Im pleased with this purchase. It was an expensive item for us. We had a lower priced shark before this. It still works and has been a good one. Hopefully this one will have the same longevity. Only time will tell. If youre looking to take your vacuum game up a level I would recommend this one. We do really like it.

I bought this vacuum back in February 2019, and have used it about an average of 2 hours every week since. The vacuum still has great suction. If there has been a loss in power, its small enough that I havent noticed. We do keep the filters clean and actually replaced them a few months ago. I dont know what magic Shark used on these rollers, but I literally havent had to cut hair out of them once. We have 2 women with long hair in living in our house, and a dog, and the rollers seriously dont have ANY hair wrapped around them after 2 years. Thats freaking impressive to me. The powered hand-held pet hair removal attachment thing is also very impressive. Ive put that through its paces vacuuming off our couches and stairs each week. Same thing, no hair wrapped around the little roller and the electric motor driving the roller is still going strong. Now, on to the customer service part of the story. Recently the main 2 rollers completely seized up. I was using the vacuum as normal and started smelling burning rubber or plastic (not sure). About 10 seconds later the roller light indicator turned red and the rollers stopped. Vacuum still works great, but I cannot get the rollers to budge at all even by hand. I assume something inside the drive assembly / mechanism broke. I went on to Sharks website, created an account with Shark and registered my product (as suggested in their warranty section), then called the 1-800 number for help. I waited on hold for less than 5 minutes. The customer service representative was intelligent. She was able to text me a link that created a video call while I was on the line with her so that I could show her exactly what the issue was. After less than 10 minutes on the phone, she had emailed me a tracking number for the free Duo-clean Floor Nozzle with Zero-M (a $90 part that was covered by the warranty), which will arrive here in 2 weeks. She then apologized that it was going to take 2 weeks, because shipping is usually faster than that but there are substantial delays right now due to COVID-19. (I work in the shipping industry so this was no surprise, and honestly 2 weeks was faster than what I expected anyway.) I am extremely impressed with the customer service, and this experience will likely drive me to buy another Shark vacuum when it comes time to replace this one. The only reason why Im not giving this 5 stars is because the standard handheld brush attachment (not the motorized one) has pretty poor suction. This isnt because of the vacuum, but because of the way the brush attachment was designed. It is actually the upholstery attachment, with a brush that clips to the end of it. The way the brush clips on lets a ton of air leak around it, so the suction is terrible with this thing (pics included). The vacuum also doesnt have anywhere to store this attachment on it, so I have to store it in the closet on a shelf and then carry it around with me if Im using it. Im really confused on why they went this direction in the design, because it doesnt work well at all. Like I said, almost perfect. I still love this thing though. Great vacuum.

EDIT/UPDATE: Once you get used to the rotating axis of the vacuum you appreciate it being there. It makes it much easier to use. The smaller cleaning path/head width makes it able to fit in places my previous vacuum could not. This is the best vacuum shark has ever made because it has the light on the handle, and you can open the garage to access thing that get stuck in the brush roll. Both of these feature are not present in the new models. Also there are no bags to continually suck $$ from you. The replacement vacuum I received did not have the squeaking issue. Also this cost $250 during amazon prime day so check out the website slickdeals to see sales on any item. __________________________________________________________________________________________ I just got this vacuum less than a week ago and it has already developed a loud squeal when pulling backwards during a normal vacuum stroke (straight forward and backwards) or when lifting the vacuum in it’s locked position. I just exchanged it for a replacement, hopefully the replacement does not do this. The vacuum is agile due to the swivel head but this makes it harder to use as you must stabilize this additional axis. While the cleaning path is wide for a shark, it is narrow at 11 inches compared to other brands. The light on the handle is great and not present on the new Vertex model. The wand is heavy and hard to use as the hose is very stiff and has little length without pulling the vacuum over. The canister is heavy to carry making the lift away and powered lift away modes difficult to use. The brush roll is accessible through its removable ‘’garage” which is no longer present in the new powerfins models. There are reviews of customers with legos and rocks stuck in the brushroll of the new Vertex which stops it from spinning, yet Shark says there is no way to remove it. They say the motorized head is a wearable part and not under warranty, regardless of how new it is. They will not tell you how to take apart the motorized head to access the brushroll, which btw requires a special Torx security screwdriver. YouTube channel vacuum wars has a review on this vacuum, but doesn’t mention this glaring downside. The motorized pet tool no longer comes with this vacuum and the place to put it on the vacuum does not fit other accessories, which is frustrating and ridiculous. The Pet Multi-Tool is not included which is a necessity. It is a brush and a wide non brush in one. The 3 basic tools required for any vacuum are a crevice tool, a wide non brush, and a brush. This only comes with 2 of these basics; the crevice and wide non brush (shark calls this an Upholstery Tool). It also comes with a Pet Power Brush but that is not one of the needed basics. This vacuum is heavier at 16 lbs (some sources cite 17 lbs) than it’s other (to me) comparable shark models, the UV850, UV700, and LA520. Vacuum wars has a review on the LA520 which is just like the UV850. The UV850, UV700, and LA520 all do not have the powered lift away feature or light on the wand, they each have a 9.5 inch wide cleaning path and weigh about 13lbs. The UV700 has an accessible brushroll through its removable “garage”; the UV850 and LA520 (or the Vertex) do not. These other non Apex models also do not have the ridiculous issue of one of the 2 accessory holders only working with the motorized pet tool.

My main takeaway is that it came with a squeaky wheel. Otherwise, it works quite well.

I just happened to see someone on Facebook asking about vacuums for pet hair. Something like 80% of the responses were suggesting this specific model vacuum. I was already in need of a new vacuum so Im glad I saw that post and completed the subsequent research and review reading. I knew my Walmart bought Bissel was not getting the job done. My carpet cleaner would pull up wet globs of hair every couple feet! After vacuuming! The day I received this Shark Apex I vacuum my bedroom floor with the old Bissel. Having a black cat and a Rottweiler there was plenty of fine black hair in my carpets. Especially beside my bed where my Rottweiler faithfully sleeps at night. After Bissel did its best I gave the Shark Apex a shot. Im not exaggerating at all when I tell you I had to empty its collection bin two times. It was literally full of dog hair. Full, tightly packed with dog hair. It was absolutely disgusting to realize how much hair my Bissel vacuum had been missing the last couple years. My carpet changed color. And I can say that after vacuuming my bedroom, hallway, hardwood floors (instead of sweeping) and sucking up a dozen collection bins worth of pet hair since purchasing this vacuum... the Zero-M technology has still kept the roller brush clean. After vacuuming my sons bedroom today I laid down the vacuum today and my 11 year old son immediately exclaimed, Theres no hair in it! when he bent down to look at the roller brush. Even my 11 year old was shocked. The little rubber flaps they call Zero-M Technology actually work pretty well. Its not amazing for stairs though. Id love to rip the carpet off my stairs and go to wood treads. Vacuuming stairs is never fun, and this vacuum doesnt solve that issue. Even taking the collection bin and motor off in hand held mode vacuuming the stairs is still a pain in the butt. Especially since this vacuum does self propel itself with the brush. That is great throughout the house, but not on stairs. It does a great job on hard floors though. I used it today for the first time on my hard wood floors. It does NOT scatter debris like most vacuum cleaners do on hard surfaces. That said, I likely wont use it on my wood floors very much. Ive seen videos online showing that the tiny rollers underneath tend to break apart over time. And since I can hear those rollers on my wood floor Im concerned theyll wear down and eventually begin scratching the floors (I mean, if my Rottweiler hasnt yet this vacuum probably wont either, right?).

Edit 6 months later: Seriously if you are looking for a vacuum that will suck all of the dog hair up this right here is it. This thing is a dream to use. I breaks down super well so it cleans easily. It sucks great never once had a clog. I try to vacuum once a week with two dogs that shed quiet a bit and this thing is just as good as the day it got here. Okay I know the title is a little over the top but Im dead serious. So heres my story... 4 years ago I bought a vacuum and was great for spitting whatever your vacuuming back at you unless you were on hardwood floors. I also researched that one for months before I picked it. Got rid of that vacuum and got a completely different vacuum brand style and all. Spent 6 months researching before I made my decision. That vacuum had to be unclogged every pass on the carpet practically and empty halfway through a room even if I vacuumed every day. Then after about 6 months parts started breaking left and right. So back to my research I go. I deep dived an googled and inquired with friends and googled some more and deep dived and googled some more and then I found this Glorious machine. Now this is what the other vacuums were against 2 clean adults we kept the house nice and anywhere from 0 to 2 dogs. All of our dogs are short hair. I vacuumed once a week to keep on top of things and make sure to give them a fighting chance. Now in comes this work horse. I was shocked thoroughly but the amount of dirt and dust and hair that came out of our low pile carpet. I actually vacuumed twice the first time to make sure I got it as best I could. Directly after I carpet cleaned. THERE WAS NO HAIR TUFTS PULLED UP ANYWHERE. Also this is the first vacuum I have ever had that didnt smell like I kicked up a tone of dust. I can honestly say it helps my allergies. Seriously get this vacuum. You will not regret it.