Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
This doesn’t suck …my Shark Navigator Vacuum Cleaner Review
When you buy a high-quality item, after extensive research, and it arrives and lives up to every review you’ve read and every expectation you had for it …life is good.
Household chores can actually be joyous. If you have a Shark Navigator Life-Away Upright Vacuum Multi Surface Floor Cleaner, that is. Before I got this vacuum cleaner, I had this behemoth Dyson. It was also top-of-the-line but …behemoth. Big. Powerful. Too big. Heavy. If I’d had this Dyson in the ’80s, when everyone had wall-to-wall carpet, it would be perfect. But it’s 2022. My entire house is hardwood floors with area rugs and despite having a perfectly-good and working vacuum cleaner, it was time for a change.
And so, like the dream-husband I am, I bought my wife the Shark Navigator for her birthday. Sorry ladies …taken. Wait, wait, wait …before you leave an angry comment about how that’s the worst, most insensitive, and chauvinistic gift a man could get his wife for her birthday, can I just say this one thing …I do 80% of the vacuuming in our house. So, technically, while I bought it as a gift for my wife, the true gift will be my use of it. Our Dyson made vacuuming too much work. My wife hated the Dyson for years. She often talked about getting a new vacuum cleaner and even though I said ours “was perfectly good” and “worked”, I knew she was right. I fully expected her to do research. Ask people. Figure it out.
Years went by. And still …only the Dyson.
Dog hair piled up. Dust bunnies ran wild. Cob webs swayed in the breeze unchallenged.
So I, as they say, “did the work” and I read reviews. I chatted with Chat Bots on Oreck, Shark, and Dyson. I went to a vacuum cleaner trade show and made a spokes model show me which vacuum could pick up pennies and small rocks (note: I didn’t go to a vacuum cleaner trade show …but I would’ve).
The Shark Navigator is quality. It’s everything the reviews said it was. It’s the BEST for hardwoods. Gets EVERYTHING. It also does quite well with carpeting with it’s spinning brush. It’s weighs have as much as the Dyson. It pivots and turns on a dime. The suction is so powerful, it can pull dog hair and dust bunnies from an inch or two, away. With it’s low profile, it can go under things and can go almost 8-inches under the bed or chairs.
I think the Dyson, designed for carpets, scratched my hardwoods.
The Shark Navigator doesn’t scratch my floors.
I have this thick-pile area rug where my dog lays. Without the spinning brush, this Shark powerfully sucks up all the dog hair and dander and, well, my Dyson wasn’t even close to getting all the hair.
It’s been two Sundays and this Shark Navigator is such an amazing piece of equipment, I’m already looking forward to next Sunday and my next whole-house vacuum chore.
It goes to show you, if you buy quality, there is joy in just about anything and everything if you look for it. A vacuum. A car. Speakers. A watch. A lawnmower. Anything, really.
I’m not naïve. I know Shark is a major corporation, probably owned by another bigger corporation, and the vacuum I bought is probably churned out by the thousands and is built on the same vacuum cleaner assembly line as a similar product by Oreck or Samsung, and they just slapped a “Shark” logo on it. But I secretly hope there’s an engineer over there at Shark, and he’s in the lab, and he’s been working tirelessly, year in and year out, to create the perfect vacuum cleaner and he (or she …probably a “she” if you think about it) will read this and he, and his design team, will feel pride they made this guy very happy. He’ll bring a cooler full o’ beer into the vacuum lab and tap a glass with a fork and say, “hey, hey …everyone …listen up …let me read you something from Don Kowalewski’s Blog…” and he’ll start reading this Blog entry and by the end, there won’t be a dry eye in that vacuum cleaner design lab.
2022 will be remembered for many things …but this vacuum might just be at the top of the list.
This is part 1 of my 104 days of Blogging. Stay tuned for my latest hair-care finds, my thoughts on the Detroit Tigers and Lions radio announcers, on diet and nutrition, and so much more.
Don Kowalewski 