BALLOT
Shark Navigator Lift Away Professional Upright Vacuum, Silver
$249.99
Introduction
Vacuum cleaners are usually designed for carpet or bare floor, with bare floor representing all non-carpeted floorings including hardwood, laminate, tile, resilient/vinyl, and the most basic cement floor.
Vacuum cleaners designed for carpet must have level control from the thickest carpet to the thinnest rug and bare floor. This is because even fully carpeted homes would have areas of bare floor – bathroom floor for example. If you have laminate or other non-carpeted flooring, you’d want a vacuum cleaner designed for bare floor instead of compromising with one designed for carpet that happens to have a bare floor setting.
Vacuum cleaners designed for bare floor must have suction power control. This is because overly strong airflow on a hard floor would scatter more debris than it would pick up in certain situations, so you’d want to adjust the suction power as needed.
Shark
Rocket Deluxe Pro Ultra-Light Upright
Shark Rocket DeluxePro Ultra-Light Upright Corded Stick Vacuum, Bordeaux
$219.99
Shark Rocket DeluxePro Ultra-Light Upright Corded Stick Vacuum, Bordeaux
$219.99
The Shark Rocket vacuum cleaner is called Rocket because it’s light without sacrificing power (like a rocket). We recommend the DeluxePro version, model number HV322.
Many leading vacuum cleaners no longer list power rating, starting with those Oreck vacuums that led the revolutionary lightweight movement, not to mention those lightweight Kenyans that dominated world marathon events. We don’t ask the Kenyan marathon runners their bench press and vertical leap numbers, do we? The same rule applies to vacuum cleaners of which power ratings are increasingly not indicative of performance.
The Shark Rocket DeluxePro is a robust stick vacuum that weighs 8.6 pounds. It readily converts to a powerful hand vac at one third the length and weighing just 3.25 pounds. This vacuum is designed for use around the entire house, reaching all the way up to ceilings and cornices due to the lightweight stick design and easily handling deep-set dirt and debris on upholstery as a hand vac. It’s as powerful as industrial hand vacs and much more efficient than canister vacuums with long hoses.
The stars of the Rocket DeluxePro are the trademarked Shark Dust-Away hard floor attachment and the TruePet motorized brush attachment. The Dust-Away attachment works like magic on all hard floorings including laminate. It can pick up fairly large objects without scattering fine dust and pet hair. The TruePet attachment is for the hand vac configuration. If you let your dog on the couch and chew bones and stuff on it, treat the couch to the TruePet and it’s like the dog has never been on the furniture. Use the also included wide upholstery attachment to leave clean vacuum marks on upholstery, not unlike a freshly mowed lawn.
BISSELL
PowerEdge Pet Hard Floor Vacuum
Bissell PowerEdge Pet Hardwood Floor Bagless Cleaner, 81L2A Stick Vacuum, Gray
$69.99
Bissell PowerEdge Pet Hardwood Floor Bagless Cleaner, 81L2A Stick Vacuum, Gray
$69.99
The Bissell PowerEdge Pet is another stick vacuum cleaner that shatters the conventional wisdom of canister vacuum being better for hard floor. In fact this vacuum is designed with laminate and other hard floorings in mind.
The V-shape suction head seems inspired by hammerhead sharks. The V-shape is designed to guide larger particles to the middle where the suction power is the strongest, like how a hammerhead shark uses the hammerhead to guide food to the middle where the mouth is! The difference is that the sides of the V-shape would also pick up all smaller particles right there and then. Additionally, the V-shape is perfect for picking up things around pet bowls and furniture legs.
The Bissell PowerEdge Pet is an immensely popular vacuum cleaner for its unbeatable value and the fact that it works wonders in cleaning households with pets as advertised. It’s a champ at picking up pet hair, chewed-up toys, dry food, and even soiled cat litter.
This is an easily maneuverable vacuum cleaner with swivel head at just 7.1 pounds. The debris container is large for a stick vacuum. It’s super easy to empty with its quick-clean reusable filter.
Shark
Navigator Lift-Away Pro
Shark Navigator Lift Away Professional Upright Vacuum, Silver
$249.99
Shark Navigator Lift Away Professional Upright Vacuum, Silver
$249.99
The Shark Navigator is a superb upright vacuum that converts readily into a canister vacuum, which explains the Shark trademarked Lift-Away design. Our favorite model is the Shark Navigator Professional, model number NV356E.
It comes with Shark’s awesome Dust-Away hard floor attachment and two washable microfiber pads. The microfiber pad is used with the Dust-Away vacuum head to loosen tough dirt on hard floor and gather fine dust particles and hair into the vacuum. Everything else that isn’t sucked into the vacuum gathers on the microfiber pad instead of scattering and blowing away on laminate and other hard floorings. This thing is amazing – dust particles large and small are gone in every sweep.
This is an anti-allergenic vacuum with HEPA filter and what the company calls Anti-Allergen Complete Seal Technology that keeps 99.9% of dust mites and other allergens inside the debris container and vacuum.
The Shark Navigator Professional is also awesome with rugs and shag carpets. Turn it into a canister vacuum for stairs and hard-to-reach places without sacrificing suction power like canister vacuums with long hoses. This professional-grade vacuum is highly portable at just 13.7 pounds.
Conclusion
All of the above-recommended vacuums for laminate floor come with variable suction power controls and long power cords (30ft for the Shark models and 20ft for the Bissell). They are all bagless designs with sizable debris containers. If you’re confused about which one to pick, you won’t be for long. Read on.
The Bissell PowerEdge Pet is the best affordable vacuum cleaner for laminate and other hard floorings. For the modest price its cleaning power for the floor in a home with pets is almost miraculous.
However, if your furry pets are allowed on furniture and upholstery, stop using those inefficient pet hair rollers and get yourself a Shark Rocket DeluxePro. Turn it into a powerful hand vac to eliminate traces of your pets on a couch with every sweep (instead of back and forth and back and forth with a roller). You can also turn the hand vac on yourself to pick up pet hair from your clothes.
Our best vacuum for laminate and other hard floor is the venerable Shark Navigator Professional. One common comment of Dyson owners who have tried the Shark Navigator is: Works just as well on hard floor at about a third the price.
BALLOT 
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