Shark Vertex Pro Cordless Review

In this review we’ll be looking at an interesting vacuum, the Shark Vertex Pro Cordless vacuum with DuoClean PowerFins & Powered Lift-Away (that’s the official name). We put it through all kinds of tests over the period of a week, and found we liked just about everything about it.

About the Shark Vertex Pro

The Shark Vertex Pro is really similar to the Shark P50 ION cordless vacuum, which they released a few years before the Vertex Pro. That model was long discontinued at this point, but we always considered the P50 to have one of the best designs for a cordless vacuum. 

Cordless vacuum design

Before we get to the actual review, we should explain some problems that we have experienced with traditional stick style cordless vacuums that we found some answers with in the Shark Vertex Pro.

Design, handle and weight

The first problem is that all the weight of most cordless stick cordless vacuums is awkwardly placed. Their bin, motor, and their battery are all located high up off the ground, around the vacuum’s handle. This means that you have to support all that weight on your arm while vacuuming, which is kind of tiring. 

…in our testing it picked up everything we threw at it, from fine to extra-large debris…

This is solved with the Shark Vertex Pro by having all of its heavy components mounted lower to the ground, near the base of the vacuum. As a result, that weight doesn’t need to be supported by your arm as you are vacuuming.

Above floor cleaning

The second problem, or limitation, for stick style vacuums is with their above floor cleaning. By this we mean the ability to use it for other things besides vacuuming floors, such as dusting surfaces or clearing cobwebs. Most stick vacuum handles are just too awkward, in our opinion, to be genuinely useful for above floor cleaning, because there’s just too much handle or handle weight in the way to be accurate. 

The Shark Vertex Pro however, has a lift away design that is similar to many of Shark’s upright vacuums, where you can either detach the handle to clean with attachments or you can do the same thing with the long wand for harder to reach places. 

You can even detach the pod from the floor nozzle to carry it around, like for vacuuming cars or stairs or whatever. 

Storage and convenience when cleaning

The final thing we don’t like about most stick vacuums is that they’re hard to store, and when taking a vacuuming break, maybe to clear items from the floor or any other cleaning task you want to do for a bit, you need to find a way set the vacuum down without it being at risk of tumbling over. 

The fact that stick-style vacuums generally cannot stand up on their own does make them more prone to being knocked over (and possibly damaged). And, if they don’t have a charging cradle that holds the vacuum, they’re often just propped up in the corner of a closet. For those reasons, we tend to like these upright-style cordless vacuums that stand up on their own. They are far more convenient when you’re cleaning and offer more storage options, too. 

Cleaning performance 

Getting into the review, the Shark Vertex Powered Lift Away has Shark’s DuoClean roller system, which means that it has a soft roller up front and a more or less standard brushroll in the back. 

The benefit is that not only is it really good for fine debris on hard floors, basically dusting hard floors, but it’s also pretty much unmatched for larger debris. The Vertex Pro can pick up things normal vacuums just can’t. The same thing with carpets in terms of debris pickup, that is in our testing it picked up everything we threw at it, from fine to extra-large debris. 

It also has Shark’s new self-cleaning brushroll, where it’s supposed to resist hair tangles. This is the same style roller for their upright Vertex vacuums (see our Shark Vertex upright review), which Vacuum Wars has extensively tested, and it really does work. 

Digital display and HEPA filtration

When the Vertex Pro was released, one new feature on Shark cordless vacuums was a real-time digital battery life display showing how much battery life you have left. This is a really useful feature, but we did notice that it decreases by only ten percentage points at a time. 

So cool, but not as cool as it could have been if it was every percentage point. You can also switch between low, medium, and high power, and change the brush speed for hard floors or carpets with the same display. 

Another thing we liked is the sealed HEPA filtration system, which we consider extremely important. And, not every Shark cordless vacuum has it, but this one does. 

Strong suction power

In terms of raw power, at the time of testing we found it to be tied for the most suction we had seen on a cordless vacuum. When measured at the hose on max power, the rest of its specs, like airflow, were just about average, certainly on par with other Shark cordless vacuums.

In fact, it had the exact same score on the deep clean test as all the other Shark cordless vacuums previously tested, which is a 92. At the time that also happened to be the average score for all the cordless vacuums tested up to that point. 

Battery life

One of the big strengths of this vacuum is the Vertex Pro’s battery life. Shark says it can get 60 minutes on low power in suction-only mode. We tested it in its default mode, which is medium power, and it got 38 minutes, which is really impressive. 

And, even on its max power mode, it got 24 and a half minutes of run time. So, with all three power settings, it was way above average for cordless vacuums released around the same time. 

Versatility

We’ve already mentioned its versatility in terms of its Lift-Away mode. But, we should also explain the importance of the word powered which precedes Lift-Away in its name. It refers to the fact that you can also detach the pod in such a way that you can use it much like a stick vacuum, giving it a very low profile for getting under furniture. 

We also enjoyed the bright LED lights and the swivel, which has just the right amount of resistance. As far as negative stuff, there really isn’t that much to talk about. 

We weren’t sure how it would fare in the long term as the original review was done right when the Vertex Pro came out. But, now that it has been available for a while, the reviews online don’t reflect any long-term issues and customer reviews are positive, too.

Our conclusion

The Shark Vertex Pro is a premium cordless vacuum at a really good price that does way more than the average cordless vacuum does for you. If you have mostly, say, 50% or more hard floors in your house, it’s a no-brainer, but it’s certainly good for carpets as well.

Vertex Pro Cordless FAQ