Aside from being a bit a mouthful, the Shark DuoClean Powered Lift-Away Upright Vacuum Cleaner with Anti-Hair Wrap, TruePet Model NZ801UKTDB is also the best value vacuum cleaner that I have reviewed.
A Black Friday special for this year, Shark has taken one of its most powerful vacuum cleaners, added some accessories and knocked £180 off of the price – making it a bargainous £199.99.
The result is an extremely flexible and powerful vacuum cleaner that can cope with everything from carpets and pet hair to detail work in your car. It’s exceptionally easy to use and the Anti Hair Wrap Technology ensures that the rollers don’t get clogged with hair. What more could you want?
Shark NZ801UKTDB – What you need to know
- General vacuuming: The number of accessories and Lift-Away mode make this vacuum extremely flexible and able to deal with any situations, but the chunky main section can make it hard to get under some furniture.
- Carpet test: Extremely powerful with lots of suction, this vacuum made light-work of our standard carpet test.
- Hard floor test: The DuoClean brush showed its power, picking up larger specs of dirt without flicking them around.
- Pet hair pick up: Again, superb power means that this vacuum cleaner can pick up all of the mess from carpet.
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Shark NZ801UKTDB Design and Features – Extremely flexible, the Lift-Away mode lets you get into areas other uprights can’t reach
Shark’s Lift-Away vacuum cleaners are some of the most flexible, and the NZ801UKTDB is no exception. This model comes with the DuoClean floor head with the Anti Hair Wrap technology. It’s a motorised brush that has both a soft roller and bristles, built to cope with hard floors and carpet without having to switch heads as with the Dyson V11.
Into the DuoClean head goes the wand, and the vacuum’s hose and main vacuum unit then clip onto this, giving you a standard upright cleaner that can stand on its own.
Shark has placed the controls sensibly, with the power button easy to reach. Once the Shark NZ801UKTDB is turned on, the DuoClean brush doesn’t spin until the handle is tilted down, letting you stand the vacuum up with the brush worrying away at a spot of carpet.
In this mode, the Shark NZ801UKTDB works like any other upright, although the large bin and vacuum unit on the front is a little bulkier than on other models that I’ve reviewed, making it hard to get under some bits of furniture.
The DuoClean floorhead also isn’t the most nimble, and I found that I had to take slower, more deliberate turns with the vacuum cleaner to get it to go where I wanted. It takes a little bit of getting used to.
There’s a 750W motor in this model, providing plenty of power. For this reason, the handle has a suction control mechanical dial, that opens up an air vent in the hose to reduce airflow. If you find that the Shark NZ801UKTDB sticks to the floor a little bit too much, then reducing airflow can help. There’s also a switch to move from hard floor to carpet mode, where the latter ups the spin speed of the floor head.
Where the Shark NZ801UKTDB really wins is through its flexibility. First, you can remove the hose from the cleaner, as you can with many upright cleaners, giving you a more flexible way to use some of the tools.
However, there’s also Lift-Away mode, where the main vacuum canister comes off and can be carried around by its handle. This gives you something closer to a cylinder vacuum cleaner, making it easy to clean stairs or get into smaller areas, such as a car.
In Lift-Away mode, the vacuum hose can be used directly with the supplied attachments, or you can attach the wand and use them at the end of this. This makes it easy to clean up high. As the weight (all 6.5kg of it) is mainly in the vacuum unit, there’s no strain using the cleaner in this way.
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When it comes to attachments, the Shark NZ801UKTDB won’t disappoint you. In the box, you get a convertible crevice tool/dusting brush, an upholstery brush, and a smart under appliance brush that lets you get right under things like fridges or behind radiators.
There’s also the Pet Power Brush, which is a small rotating brush designed for picking up pet hair, and for cleaning the likes of stairs. It’s powered by airflow alone and is incredibly loud: I measured it at 91.9dB. It has a tendency to suck up thinner fabrics, but you can use the vacuum’s adjustable airflow to deal with this issue.
Finally, you get a box of car detailing tools: a selection of small nozzles and brushes designed for getting in and around your car’s interior to give you that as-new feel.
The 0.83-litre dustbin pulls out of the front and can be opened from either end. It’s quite narrow in the middle, so you may need to give it a tap to get out caught-up hair. You can wash this bin, too. Removing the bin also gives you access to the filters that can be washed, too.
Shark NZ801UKTDB Performance – Sucks up everything
With its 750W motor, the Shark NZ801UKTDB is one of the most powerful vacuum cleaners that you can buy, and you can certainly feel it when you use it. At times, it felt as though the cleaner was firmly glued to the ground, which is where the suction power dial comes in handy to reduce airflow and make it easier to push the vacuum. The result of this power is that the Shark NZ801UKTDB performs brilliantly, getting most spills in a single swipe. And, thanks to the range of tools, there’s no job that’s too big or too small for this vacuum cleaner.
Despite the high-power motor, I measured the vacuum cleaner at 77.9dB, which isn’t particularly higher than other Shark vacuum cleaners that I’ve tested. I can safely say that that the smart Anti Hair Wrap technology, which uses a bristle guard and combs to stop hair getting stuck, works brilliantly.
There’s an 8m power cord on this model, which is 2m shy of some of Shark’s other cleaners but should still provide enough reach that you shouldn’t need more than two power sockets to clean your entire home.
To test the Shark NZ801UKTDB on carpets, I sprinkled a teaspoon of flour on carpet, right up against the skirting board. Giving the vacuum cleaner a single pass of the dust, I found that it picked up everything, right to the edge. That’s very impressive cleaning and shows that you can quickly clean a house with this model, and shouldn’t need to use the crevice tool so often.
Carpet test: Dirty carpet (left) vs Clean carpet (right) – move slider to compare
On hard floors, I sprinkled two teaspoons of rice on the floor and then used a single pass with the vacuum cleaner set to the hard floor mode. Here, the DuoClean head showed its dual purpose, picking up every grain of rice without leaving one behind or pinging one off into the kitchen. A few more sweeps around our initial path was all that I needed to leave the floor completely clean.
Carpet test: Dirty hard floor (left) vs Clean hard floor (right) – move slider to compare
The power of the DuoClean brush, and the Pet Power Brush for smaller areas, means that pet hair is easy to remove. I combed hair from my cats right into the carpet fibre, and the Shark NZ801UKTDB pulled it all out in a single pass. Typically, most vacuum cleaners will need a couple of sweeps, but not this one.
Carpet test: Dirty carpet with pet hair (left) vs Clean carpet (right) – move slider to compare
Should you buy the Shark NZ801UKTDB?
The Shark Lift-Away design is one of our favourites, and the Shark NZ801UKTDB is no different. In upright mode, this is a supremely powerful vacuum cleaner that cleans up mess quickly with no hassle. A bit more manoeuvrability would be nice but that’s a very minor complaint.
In Lift-Away mode, the NZ801UKTDB gets another lease of life, providing a smaller, more compact unit that you can carry around for more detail work. With this special edition, you’re covered for everything from under appliances to detail work inside your car.
Even better, the price of the Shark NZ801UKTDB makes it an absolute bargain. If you need something powerful and flexible there’s no point looking anywhere else.
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