Shark Navigator Elite Professional Lift-away Rotator - Model NV501 Review
| Product Code | B0091JG0LY |
| Product Rating |  |
| Price | $249.99 |
| Where To Buy | See More Details |
| Customer Review | See More Reviews |
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #5158 in Home
- Size: 12, 18, 14.
- Color: White/Red
- Brand: Shark
- Model: NV501
- Dimensions: 24.85 pounds
Features
- Never Loses Suction upright vacuum features 3 vacuums in one, a powerful upright, a lift-away pod for portable cleaning and a convenient canister vacuum
- Extra large capacity dustcup and Anti-Allergen Complete Seal Technology traps over 99.99% of dust and allergens inside the vacuum
- Ultra-maneuverable swivel steering provides the ultimate control to get in and around obstacles and furniture
- Powerful motorized brushroll can be turned on or off, providing superior performance on both carpets and bare floors
- Includes 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
- Never Loses Suction upright vacuum features 3 vacuums in one, a powerful upright, a lift-away pod for portable cleaning and a convenient canister vacuum
- Extra large capacity dustcup and Anti-Allergen Complete Seal Technology traps over 99.99% of dust and allergens inside the vacuum
- Ultra-maneuverable swivel steering provides the ultimate control to get in and around obstacles and furniture
- Powerful motorized brushroll can be turned on or off, providing superior performance on both carpets and bare floors
- Includes 5 Year Manufacturer Warranty
Product Description
This Never Loses Suction upright vacuum features a unique detachable and portable canister that lifts away for effortless cleaning in and around the home. The extra large capacity dustcup and Anti-Allergen Complete Seal Technology traps over 99.99% of dust and allergens inside the vacuum. Ultra-maneuverable swivel steering provides the ultimate control to get in and around obstacles and furniture and super quiet technology allows for operation anywhere, anytime. The powerful motorized brushroll can be turned on or off, providing superior performance on both carpets and bare floors. Includes a premium pet power brush, extendable flexible crevice tool, and other specialized tools for versatile cleaning throughout the home. An extra long 30 foot long power cord provides maximum range for cleaning large spaces quickly and easily.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
826 of 837 people found the following review helpful.
By Michael Flux
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 trashy infomercials are annoying and some of their original vacuums flat out sucked beyond belief.A few years ago I got a Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vacuum, if not mistaken 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 vacuum that caught my attention the most was the white Shark Navigator Professional Lift-Away. What caught my attention was how (extremely surprisingly!) high the reviews were. I was honestly not expecting it, especially after having my thoughts on the brand. I read the reviews, and then read them some more and after about a week I finally decided to give it a shot. Now at this point I have already gone to a store to see the Navigator Pro in person and was honestly not too horribly impressed by how it looked or felt. It looked like it was made out of PVC sewage pipes and it wobbled from side to side as if it was about to fall apart - though I am wondering if that was just because it was a display unit and was dropped one too many times...Either way, moving on to this Rotator vacuum - about a day before I was set to buy the Navigator Pro I accidentally stumbled upon this new model thanks to the search suggestions on Amazon. Since Bed Bath and Beyond usually carries all the latest Shark products I drove over to one that was close to me and not surprisingly there it was. Cool thing about the BB&B stores is that the vacuums all have outlets next to them so you can actually plug them in to see how they work. I plugged this one in to play around with it a bit and my surprises started. First, it felt surprisingly very solid - none of that weird wobbling that I experienced with the Navigator Pro. Second, lets be honest here, this thing is damn pretty!So then, supposedly 5 year warranty, plus being able to return it if I didn't like it, plus having a 20% off BB&B coupon - why the hell not! I bought it. With the coupon + taxes it came out to being around $215, not too bad at all. Also slightly off topic, but while I was playing with this vacuum, I also had a chance to check out Dyson's latest pink-ish purple DC41 Animal Complete and while it is gorgeous, and seems to suck well, I just can't justify the 650 dollar price tag. I'm sure it's good, but it's not 3x better than this one!Of course as soon as I got home and squealing like a little girl I unpacked the vacuum, quickly assembled it (assembly didn't even take a minute) and started vacuuming.THE PROS- It sucks up dirt and pet hair amazingly well! We currently have 8 cats (don't worry, 4 of them are just fosters!) and so as you can imagine there is plenty of fur all over the carpets every day. Having vacuumed with the old vacuum just the day before this one filled up with dust and hair to as full as it got.- Even while the cup is completely packed full of dirt it doesn't seem to loose any suction and keeps on collecting crap and packing it in somehow.- It is pretty light.- The Premium Power Brush (more about it in a minute) works amazingly well. Most of our cars sleep in bed with us and so every morning there is a ton of cat hair all over the sheets. I can collect 100% of it within a minute using this brush. Very very happy. The old Bissell came with a similar brush but it didn't work for shit on the exact same bed/fur.- When the spinning brush is turned off (love that you can turn it off manually + it turns off automatically when the vacuum is upright) it collects things off of hard floors without much of a problem (think things like cat food). And the Straight Suction Nozzle that comes along with this vacuum picks everything up even better. We have the litter box in the bathroom and every morning there is a bunch of litter spilled all over the place - I can now collect it all within seconds using this vacuum.- The vacuum is very quiet compared to my old one and to the Dysons (maybe it's just me, but I really don't like the high pitched squeal that the Dyson's make)- The car detailing kit that came with the vacuum works very well too - already used it once to clean the car out.- the "caddy" works as advertised too. Rolls around right after you essentially turning the vacuum from an upright, into a canister vacuum. It looked quite gimmicky at first but to my surprise I'm using it every single day.- Like all the Dyson vacuums, emptying this one is wonderful - since you can dump everything right from the bottom of the cup straight to the trash everything around you stays clean.- The air blowing out of the vacuum seriously smells fresh! This vacuum seems to have 3 filters in it, and it looks like all the visible dust stops at the very first washable foam filter, before the second fabric filter and long before the final HEPA filter. I'm yet to see a spec of dust even on the second filter.THE CONS- The vacuum is quite light so when you're using any of the tools when you pull too much on the hose the vacuum can easily topple over. With that said when it's on the caddy it becomes a lot more stable so what I now do is first I vacuum everything for which I would need to tools - ie the bed, bathroom, kitchen floor etc, and then for the rest of the apartment I stick the vacuum back on the base and vacuum all the carpets - and with how well the vacuum sucks the whole apartment takes me barely 15 minutes to vacuum with the floors looking spotless afterwards.- Maybe it's because both me and my fiancee have relatively long hair, but the spinning brushes in both the base and the power brush get a ton of hair stuck on them. Its not at all hard to remove (takes a few seconds with small pointy scissors) but it is a bit annoying. All I do see is the is our long hair, no cat hair, so I'm assuming if you don't have too long of hair yourself this won't be much a problem.- The lights on the front of the vacuum could be brighter. Not to say they're overly dim, but I've seen LEDs a hundred times brighter than the ones used - these look like they're were stuck in just for the sake of going "LOOK LOOK LOOK it HAS LED LIGHTS!!!!" Plus I'm not a fan of how it makes the front of the vacuum look like an old semi truck... :p- The flexible hose is honestly pretty stiff and not very stretchy - and this leads to the vacuum tending to topple over at the slightest pull. I really hope it's like this only because it's still new...- The "rubberised" crevice tool while, like advertised, is pretty flexible (aka the end wobbles from side to side) but I feel like it's more annoying when you're trying to suck up something from a corner and the the tip keeps on getting bent in random directions.Of course if I notice any more flaws I will keep updating this review. But finally I want to move on to the last very important bit with this vacuum. There is actually 5 different variations of it. The NV500, NV501, NV502, NV503 and NV500W. In all 5 variants the actual vacuum is the same but they come with different accessories.NV500- Walmart ($229)Multi-tool, 18" flexi-crevice tool, canister caddy, straight suction nozzle and standard power brush.NV501- General Distribution (So Kohl's, Macy's, Lowe's, Sears, etc...) ($229- $249)Multi-tool, 18" flexi-crevice tool, canister caddy, straight suction nozzle, premium power brush and multi-angle dusting brush.NV502- Bed, Bath and Beyond ($249)Multi-tool, 18" flexi-crevice tool, canister caddy, straight suction nozzle, premium power brush and car detail kitNV503- Target ($219) *Only unit that is blue instead of red)Multi-tool, 18" flexi-crevice tool, dust-away with pad and standard power brush.NV500W- Infomercial offer (us) ($199)Dusting brush, 11" crevice tool and premium power brush.Basically with the NV500, NV503 and NV500W while being cheaper you're getting a crappy deal because the accessories you're not getting are actually extremely useful.Between the NV501 and NV502 (the one I got) I would definitely suggest going for the NV502. The multi-angle dusting brush that comes the NV501 is relatively worthless and does nothing that you can't do with the multi-tool. I much more prefer having tools to clean my car, especially since they work pretty well. On top of that keep in mind that since the NV502 is sold at Bed Bath and Beyond, you can easily find a 20% off coupon and have this vacuum for 50 dollars cheaper!At the time of writing this review I've been using this vacuum for about a week and I'm quite trilled with it. If you have any questions, please ask and I'll try to answer them.Michael
128 of 132 people found the following review helpful.
By Gecko Girl
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 (sold exclusively at BB&B). Two, should anything go wrong with the vac you can return it directly to the store and avoid any shipping hassles. Finally, three, this is one of the few higher priced items at BB&B that's eligible for the 20% off discount coupons! Another plus, should you have a BB&B 20% off coupon that you'd received in the mail and is expired, you can still use it at any BB&B retail location, no matter how long ago it expired! This does not apply to emailed coupons, coupons with the 10or20% off discounts or the $5 off coupons. Only the regular 20% off coupons may be used after the expiration date. If you have any questions about an expired coupon just call your local BB&B before going and they'll be happy to assist you (& no I don't work there, I just love the store!).Good luck with whatever vac you decide to purchase and please leave a review so others can learn or benefit from your experience.
57 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
By wordsmith246
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. The unpacking took more time than the actual assembly. Second, the tools it came with are not only functional, but easy to maintain. The pet tool for example has an access hatch that allows you to clean or free anything caught on the brush. Lastly, it's lighter than I expected. I know that this may seem like a small thing, but after using it to clean my entire apartment I was glad for the lighter poundage.Ok, so now it's set up and we're ready to clean. It's very quiet as compared to my other vacuum. The swivel feature takes a little getting used to, but once you do this machine is just fantastic on floors. Cleaning up errant cat litter on hard surfaces or carpet and in between every little nook and cranny this vacuum took it all up and left nothing behind. Now it's not a miracle machine. I did have to go over some of the carpet areas more than once. Next I used the flexible brush wand to "dust" a bit. Window sills, curtains and ceiling corners were all left behind clean. I was impressed. But how well will it perform on my furniture. I eased into using the pet tool by vacuuming my recliner. It's a smoother cloth and the pet tool did remarkably well. No hair left behind. Ok, onto the couch and loveseat. Both collect a ton of pet hair. I put the pet tool to work and got the seat cushions and the arms of the couch. The tool is a bit large and can be tough to negotiate, but the learning curve isn't steep and I was soon cleaning everything well. On the softer back cushions it took several passes, but I expected that seeing as how the cushions are soft like pillows. I very much doubt that even the Dyson could have picked up every hair in one pass. It took a bit of time for me to finish both and as I later looked at them there was still a bit of hair on the back cushions, but I believe that to be my fault and not the vacuums.I only emptied the canister once and while it was nearly full the vacuum never hinted that it was running out of suction. It was easy to dump and then seal back up.Ok, now for the super final test. I pulled off my shoes and socks to see if I had missed anything and to see how well my new vacuum had performed. I walked everywhere I vacuumed and didn't step on one loose piece of litter. Wow!! Ok, now I'm impressed. I figured the carpeted areas would be ok, but hard floors can be difficult. I had to use a swiffer dry just to get all of the litter out of the corners when using my old vacuum. I was really impressed with the job it did on my floors.So, if you're in the market for a powerful versatile vacuum, take a serious look at the Shark.December 16, 2012 ******UPDATE!!******So after a few weeks with the Navigator I wanted to give an update. I used it a few times during the week and it gets easier to use and cleans better each time I use it. I thought that the pet brush was going to require a learning curve to use and while it does it's definitely a short one. I have been able to clean my couch, loveseat and recliner in two or three passes at this point. Now I want to give it a real workout. I let the vacuuming go for two weeks. I would dust pan up the loose litter from my cats, but no vacuuming. It was definitely a trial for all of us. At the end of two weeks I had enough shed cat hair on my couch to have made another cat and there was practically no corner of the apartment where there wasn't litter. Ok, this is a definite work out for any vacuum. I figured that there was no way that I was going to get all the cat hair up and have the floors pass my barefoot test. So I set the navigator to the task. I did have to make extra passes on the floor to get up all the litter, but it did get every piece up and the floors did pass my barefoot test. Next onto the furniture. Again extra passes were required to get at all of the cat hair and since I did let it go I had to give them an extra cleaning, but lo and behold everything is once again fur free. I am impressed. At this point I would have to wonder how much better Dyson or Miele would have to clean in order to beat the results I've been getting with the Navigator.
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