This tracks with my experience with their products. On paper, Shark makes a compelling product; liftaway ability, can do hard floor and carpet as well as above- floor cleaning, they are light, and very inexpensive. But they are designed to be used, damaged, and disposed of. Parts are just not available for anything they make, outside of a very short window, as you pointed out. Add the fact that their "duoclean" design seems to make the vacuum work worse and you have a product that is hard to recommend but is unfortunately still very attractive to many consumers. More on reddit.com

I generally warn folks to stay away from Shark in general, as they do not put a whole lot of emphasis on the longevity of their designs. Most of them, although they have nice features and work well out of the box, have especially dirty bin and filter setups and lack overall build quality. Dyson and Shark are compared directly quite frequently, but Dyson by far offers the better products with superior customer service, in my personal experience at least. I think the price Shark asks for the Stratos cordless is a lot of money for the quality of the machine. I like Vacuum Wars, but his videos do not always take that stuff into account, and I see it in the wild quite frequently from working on all types of vacuum cleaners. It is above your budget, but if you did not see, Dyson is offering a sale at $649 on their V15 Absolute package , which comes with a few fancy attachments, both the universal head for hard floors and carpet and the dedicated hard floor head with the laser, the "Detect" dirt sensor, the powered head you would want for stairs, built-in crevice tool and dusting brush, and so forth. For a unit that they typically sell for $799, the current sale price is actually a solid deal. I am guessing that it is discounted because Dyson is about to roll out a new model, the Gen5 Detect, to dethrone the V15. Since your budget is flexible, I thought it would be worth mentioning, because it really blows the V8 out of the water in about every way. There is some saltiness against Dyson on this subreddit, but the V15 is currently one of the most powerful cordless machines on the market. Dyson designed the V15 to replace a corded machine and I have yet to see evidence that one cannot do so, and the high levels of airflow and suction back that one could. Definitely take any claims that they cannot with a grain of salt, because it likely comes from a place of personal bias. That is an ongoing problem with certain folks. Of course, there are downsides to a cordless machine such as the V15 with examples being run times (though impressive), charge times, and long-term battery life. With that said, I know many people love the convenience of a cordless stick platform vacuum cleaner. If you want something cheaper but of similar quality to a Dyson, LG offers some great deals such as the CordZero A907GMS , which also comes with a universal head, dedicated hard floor roller, and miniature motorized tool for stairs. A few benefits that it has over a Dyson are that it comes with a dual charging stand, it has a cyclone pack that can be washed with the filters, and it has an extender wand. Basically anything from LG would work. They make Kompressor models that are more powerful than the regular models and have a lever that you press to compact the debris in the bin, so definitely search around and find an attachment package and price that is suited for you if you are interested. The main differences between all the models they sell in the CordZero line are the attachments, the amount of batteries, and whether it is a Kompressor model or not. The LGs are of good quality, so no worries there. This is just cordless vacuum cleaners, since that is in what you seem to be interested. I could also list a few corded machines if that would be helpful, because there are benefits to those. More on reddit.com

You should pick a reputable machine from the auto reply. Shark is known as one of the worst manufacturers to deal with.

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This guy does great unbiased reviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTkUNwBo9Ao More on reddit.com