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In the box, Shark has been very generous with accessories. You get a crevice tool, a multi surface brush (hard brush and upholstery tool), mini pet brush (great for carpets and sofas) and the anti-allergen brush, which you can use for dusting pretty much everything from blinds to furniture thanks to its articulated joint.
On standard power, the cleaner can run for up to 50 minutes (with non-motorised tool), although you get under 10 minutes when running on boost mode.
In This Article
Like most cordless vacuums now, the Shark Stratos uses a point-and-shoot mechanism, which means the canister collapses out into your main rubbish bin when you empty it. Unlike some vacs I've tested, the mechanism here is seriously powerful, and I've not yet had to fish any hair or dust out from the bin manually. Performance is excellent, with Standard mode cleaning a path through my spilt rice grains, with nothing dropping out at the end. I started off by measuring the Shark ICZ300UKT’s raw performance in AirWatts (AW), which is a combination of suction power and airflow. On Eco mode, I measured a result of 35.65AW, which is similar to a lot of handheld models; 56.98AW on Standard is similar to your average cordless; and 175.24AW on Turbo is a lot of power for really tough jobs. In terms of battery life, the vacuum performed reasonably well. At full power it lasted 10mins 47secs, which is slightly short of the competition. In Economy mode, however, it was only a few seconds short of the more expensive Dyson Gen5detect, while in Clean Sense mode it lasted almost 41 minutes. We don’t move the vacuum during this test, so we’d expect that time to drop in real-world use as the vacuum encounters more dirt and increases the suction. The device has a couple of main controls. A thumb switch on the top is used to turn the vacuum on and off and swap between hard floor and carpet modes. With carpet mode selected, the rollers spin faster to agitate the fibres more and clean deeper into the carpet. This doesn’t alter the suction, but you can give it a boost by pulling the trigger that sits just in front of your forefinger as you hold the handle.
As I said before, it delivers where it really counts, thanks to a powerful motor, large dust capacity and effortless movement around the house. The Shark cordless did a fair job in our standard cleaning tests. On hard floor, it collected 24g of a 26g spillage of Cheerios. The missing Cheerios were sent flying across the room by the enthusiastic soft roller, but that was nothing that couldn’t be sorted out by hunting them down afterwards. However, you can get extra tools if you're willing to spend more. The pet variant (the Shark IZ300UKT) comes with a mini turbo brush, while the IZ320UKT comes with the same turbo brush plus an extra battery, letting you clean for twice as long without recharging.
At 4.1kg it’s fairly weighty for a cordless vacuum, with the weight split more or less evenly between the floor head and the vacuum engine, which is located up near the handle. There are three power modes to choose from (Eco, Standard and Boost), plus you can choose between carpet and hard floor modes, which adjust the speed of the floor head.
As with other Shark Flexology vacuums, the extension wand has a bend in it, which serves two purposes. Release the clasp on the wand and you can clean under low-lying furniture without having to get on your hands and knees. The bright LED headlamps on the front help you see what you’re doing. Second, fold the wand all the way over and, cleverly, the vacuum supports its own weight, allowing it to be stored temporarily in a corner without you having to lean it against a wall. While raw power tells us a bit about a vacuum cleaner, real-world performance will largely come down to the quality of the accessories. Fortunately, Shark didn’t let me down. READ NEXT: The best cordless vacuum cleaners to buy today Shark Anti Hair Wrap with Flexology IZ201UKC review: How well does it clean? On the plus side, Shark’s articulated “Flexology” elbow does make cleaning under low furniture very easy indeed, allowing you to stand up and swing the cleaning head underneath your cupboards and sofas from a standing position, without having to get down on your hands and knees.The Shark IZ320UKT was subjected to a month of high-intensity family use – it didn’t get away lightly with a couple of lab tests – I’m talking about broken glass, sand, mud, damp cereal, pet hair, trodden in garden debris and probably half a kilo of peas during that time. You get two batteries in the box, plus a charger that can take both batteries, so you can keep them both topped up all of the time. If you prefer, you can just charge the battery in the vacuum’s body by plugging in the power cable at the rear. I ran my carpet test to start with, placing a teaspoon of flour on the ground. Running the Shark IZ320UKT through the middle I got a clean collection of the dust on Standard power. Next, I ran the vacuum through the top on Eco mode and the bottom on Boost. There’s little to tell between the two, and it’s impressive that the Shark IZ320UKT can clean so well on its lowest setting. It’s also a bit of a fiddle to remember how to release all the various bits and bobs. Where the wand meets the top of the main unit, there are no fewer than five different buttons and release catches to separate everything, from the hose to the collection bin. It’s all well labelled, but I still found myself having to pause and think about which blue catch to press to release the collection bin.
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