Shark Navigator Elite Professional Lift-away Rotator - Model NV501

Very pleasantly surprised
*** 8 Month Update at the bottom of this review ***

First let me start by saying that overall as a brand I strongly dislike Shark. I don't have anything against them personally but the endless annoying and trashy infomercials and the fact that a lot of their older vacuums sucked beyond belief, I honestly am not too thrilled with them as a company.

A few years ago I got a Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vacuum, model 3920, and very quickly became disappointed with it. It sucked well, but within minutes the plastic piece at the top, the one responsible for making the airflow rotate got clogged up with fur and the suction went down dramatically. Emptying the dust cup was the worst part of it, it made a horrible mess all over the place. I suffered with that vacuum for a couple years and recently decided that my time was worth more than putting up with that crap. I started looking around Amazon for vacuums with the best reviews. Dysons, Hoovers, Eurekas etc, but the...

Best vacuum I've ever had the pleasure of using!
After reading reviews for the Dyson and Shark Rotator for weeks I went with the Rotator, more specifically the NV502 model found at Bed Bath & Beyond. It was a CINCH to assemble and I was able to use it not more than 5 minutes after opening the box. The suction on this thing is AMAZING, it practically propels itself when on the vacuum base. It's cut my vacuuming time to 1/4 of the time it took with my commercial Royal vacuum! I also own a small cleaning service with a handful of weekly accounts and its made my accounts so much easier to clean, my clients are AMAZED by how much nastiness gets pulled from their carpets (as am I).

So glad I read the review left by Michael Flux as he really did a thorough job explaining all the different models and accessories they include. I have yet to use the car cleaning kit but will soon.

I suggest anyone looking to buy this vacuum to get it at Bed Bath & Beyond, for a couple reasons. One, you get more accessories with the NV502...

Wow!!!
A little background. I live with two cats. I have both hardwood floors and carpet. My furniture is velour with soft cushions. I use Tidy Cats clumping litter for two litter boxes. Tidy Cats is a round pellet type litter and it gets everywhere. The cats, while short haired, shed quite a lot and I've only just been keeping up with the shed fur with regular vacuuming, grooming and sticky rolls. In short I desperately needed a new vacuum, but which one? I could take out a thirty year mortgage and buy a Dyson, but everything I've read says that there are several very good alternatives available to this. Ok, so once again, which one? After reading Micheal Flux's(thanks Michael!) review and the fact that it's almost less than half the Dyson DC41 Animal Complete I decided to purchase the Shark.

This is going to be in initial review of the machine, I'm hoping to update it as I use it more and more.

First of all, I was surprised at how easy it was to put together...

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