There’s a battery attached to the base of the handle, which can be removed easily. The port for the supplied charging cable is on the end, and you can charge it while connected to or separated from the rest of the equipment. There are three LEDs on the side of the battery that show whether the battery has full charge, medium charge or low charge. If the last light starts to flash, it’s an indication it’s nearly empty. There's no doubt that our testing process proved that this vacuum is worth the large price tag that it carries. Even if you don't have pets, the ease with which this vacuum does away with hair is astounding, and our Ecommerce Editor Molly found that it was unmatched when it came to suction. Shark calls its folding extension wand “Flexology”, and it’s worth giving a name to. A button on the wand releases a catch that lets the wand flex at knee height. This can be used to slide the floor head under low furniture, or to fold it right over to reduce the height of the device to 680mm for storage – a state in which it can also support itself in an upright position. Flexology means your vacuum can be pivoted under furniture using an elbow hinge at the centre of the tube. It saves you from bending and reaching, but it's only available on cordless vacuums.

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's a suite of onboard tools which can be used with this vac too, Molly's favourite being the Anti Hair Wrap Power Tool which is great for upholstery and smaller jobs. How we test Shark vacuums

We were very excited to test the brand new Shark Detect Pro for a few reasons. The first is that it's unbelievably lightweight, at just 2.76kg, so your days of lugging around a heavy vacuum are behind you. I was a little concerned that ditching the fluffy roller would be a compromise too far in our tests, and that the hard floor results would be some way behind what we’ve seen from Shark’s best models. We really like to get a hands-on experience with the products which we feature across Ideal Home, in line with our testing protocol. It means that we get tounderstand more about whatyouare getting for your money.She also loved the portable vacuum cleaner element that is accessible with just the push of a button. This is thanks to Powered Lift-Away which is super handy for using the suite of attachments to refresh upholstery or vacuum skirting boards.

Because the Shark Anti Hair Wrap Cordless Vacuum IZ202UK is relatively unsophisticated, it’s also straightforward to use. The three-way switch on the top of the unit is easily accessible and well labelled, and pulling the trigger below to get a boost is intuitive. With the one floor head capable of cleaning both hard floor and carpet, there’s no switching needed. If manoeuvrability is key for you, the Eufy HomeVac S11 Infinityand Dyson Micro 1.5kgare both much easier to handle. 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.READ NEXT: The best robot vacuum cleaners to buy today Shark Anti Hair Wrap with Flexology IZ201UKC review: Should you buy it?