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- Very powerful
- Flexible and easy to use
- Floor and dirt detection
- A bit pricey
- Four filters to keep clean
Why simply have one vacuum when you can have three in one go? That’s the question Shark is asking with its brand new PowerDetect Transformer.
It’s a corded vacuum cleaner that can go from being a humble hand vacuum to a stick and even a traditional upright with a matter of clicks, so you’ve got one vacuum to rule them all. Well, that’s the idea anyway.
This particular model has been out in the US for the last couple of months, and has finally made the journey over the Atlantic to good old England, where I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks.
Shark PowerDetect Transformer review: What you need to know
The Transformer is Shark’s latest upright vacuum, and one of the only models in its extensive range that’s as happy working as a standalone handheld vacuum as it is a more traditional upright cleaner. As such, it is a bit more complicated than your average carpet cleaner.
At first glance, it looks like a traditional all-in-one upright, but press a button halfway up the handle and it splits in two, the top half forming a compact, corded handheld vacuum with a small dust collection bin all of its own. Alternatively, you can just remove the big dust collection bin on the front and the Transformer becomes a lightweight stick vacuum.
Aside from the ability to switch modes, the Transformer also comes packed to the nines with clever features: Shark’s PowerDetect head automatically adjusts to the surface you’re cleaning; there are different colour headlights for carpet and hard floor so you can see what you’re cleaning and what’s left to clean; HEPA filtration keeps the air you’re breathing dust free; there’s anti-hair wrap; “edge detect” where it detects you’re cleaning near skirting boards and boosts the power; and it employs Shark’s odour neutralisation tech, too, to keep your rooms smelling fresh.
The only thing it doesn’t have is a battery for cordless cleaning, but I suppose you can’t have it all.
Price and competition
The Transformer retails for £500, making it quite an expensive upright vacuum. While cordless vacuums frequently hit this mark and more – the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute and Halo Capsule XR, for example – there aren’t many corded models we’ve tested that expensive.
The Dyson Ball Animal Complete is the closest we’ve tested, and at £430 retail it’s not far off Shark’s price. The Transformer, however, offers similar grunt in a more technologically advanced and versatile package.
Design
When fully assembled, the Transformer is a bit of a beast. It stands 117cm tall and the large bin attached to the front means it looks pretty bulky. My sample came in a fetching dark green colour, which I quite like, although other hues are available if that isn’t your jam.
In this traditional upright form, this vacuum tips the scales at around 8kg or so, making it reasonably hefty if you’re used to lighter cordless stick vacs, but around the same weight as other standard uprights. Assembly out of the box is easy, although there is quite a bit to do as the Transformer comes in multiple pieces.
The brains of the Transformer reside in the hand vacuum portion, which sits at the top and hosts the controls and small display. This shows you which floor mode you have selected, and where you can see if the Transformer is in its automatic mode, where it’ll adjust suction and brush speed to suit different floor types. If that goes purple, it means the vacuum is in its Boost mode for a difficult bit of cleaning.
The handheld portion then attaches to the main wand, PowerDetect head and the main bin to turn it into an upright. If you don’t want to use the main bin, then you can discard it – it’s now magically a stick vacuum that’s much lighter and easier to push around – or, if you don’t want to use the floor head, then you can ditch that as well so it becomes a hand vacuum.
Of course, there’s no battery here, so you’ll have to deal with coiling and uncoiling the mains cable as you use it, but you shouldn’t have to do much in the way of plugging and unplugging as the cable is a whopping nine metres long.
Accessories
When it was delivered to me, the Transformer came with a crevice tool, a pet multi-tool whose brush can be removed so it doubles as a furniture tool, and a pet power brush. That should be enough for most household jobs, including more general cleaning and finer work, such as skirting boards or tighter corners.
You can also buy a range of other accessories in the spare parts section of the Shark website, ranging from a bendy extendable hose for added flexibility when cleaning your car. It’s a shame you can’t pick and choose the accessories you get with the unit out of the box, but it’s potentially worth paying extra for the ones you need, depending on your requirements.
There are also two plastic clips that come in the box to attach to the Transformer, so you can mount the smaller accessories on the unit itself – you’ll have to find a place to store the pet power brush, though, as that’s too large to fit.
This vacuum only comes with one main floor head, but it’s a mighty clever one. Not only can it automatically adjust to the surface you’re cleaning, tweaking things like roller speed and suction power automatically so you don’t have to, it can also boost power when it detects a large spillage, or when you’re cleaning next to the wall and it can even change direction of suction when you’re pushing or pulling the vacuum back and forth.
Naturally, it’s also possible to manually switch between hard floor, short pile, and long pile carpet loads if you want more control. And its twin rollers mean you don’t have to change floor heads when you go from carpet to hard floor. The soft roller at the front helps it keep hard flooring spic and span, while the brush bar at the rear agitates the fibres of rugs and carpets.
Finally, the head is equipped with a set of LEDs that are designed to reveal any dirt remaining on the floor: a blue dust-detecting LED in the corner of the head for hard floor cleaning; and white headlights strung all along the front edge for carpets.
How we test vacuum cleaners
We conduct the same tests for all our vacuum cleaners, running a range of tests to see how well the machine copes in a range of different cleaning scenarios on different flooring types.
We test with plain flour and Cheerios to see how the machine copes with the smallest and largest particles. We have a cleaning test for pet hair, too, so you can see how good it is at lifting fine hairs from carpet and upholstery.
Finally, we also run suction tests in the lowest and highest power modes to give you an idea of how performance varies across a range of different settings.
Cleaning performance
In terms of suction, the Transformer emerges as one of the more potent vacuums we’ve tested. Using a vacuum pressure gauge revealed a peak suction of 60kPA on the ‘Auto’ mode when in handheld or stick mode.
It’s supposed to be even more powerful in full upright mode with the large dust collection bin attached, but I couldn’t find a way to attach the suction meter to the base and get a reliable reading.
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Suction | 60kPa (handheld/stick mode) |
| Cheerios on carpet | 97% |
| Cheerios on hard floor | 100% |
| Flour on carpet | 100% |
| Flour on hard floor | 100% |
| Pet fur on carpet | 98% |
| Pet fur on hard floor | 100% |
| Average | 99.2% |
In my cleaning tests, the Transformer picked up 97% of the 26 grams of Cheerios on a carpet tile in one pass at maximum power and would have likely picked up the full 100% if it weren’t for the roller spraying them out as I tried to go over them. A second pass picked up the remaining stragglers with ease, however.
The Transformer was otherwise virtually perfect, picking up all of the 50g of flour and 98% of the 5g of dog hair with ease on carpet, having no issues with the admittedly quite shaggy hair in the roller. The rest was picked up with a pull back and a second pass.
On hard flooring, the Transformer switched itself automatically to hard floor mode, complete with blue “reveal” laser, and enabled the most powerful Boost setting when I pushed it over the 26g of Cheerios. It cleaned every crumb perfectly in one pass. The same was also true of the dog hair and the flour on hard flooring. All were cleaned 100% in one pass, although for the flour the vacuum didn’t enable Boost mode.
The one gripe I have is that the immense suction of the Transformer means it can require some effort to push around, even if the mass is similar to a more traditional upright. But you can use it as a stick vacuum without the main bin if you fancy giving your arms a rest. Using the vacuum in this mode also gives the chance for the head to swivel up to 90 degrees on the end to make cleaning in corners easier.
Filters and emptying
The other small irritation is the numbers of filters that need to be maintained. There are four of these in total, with pre- and post-motor filters in the large bin and another pair of pre- and post-motor filters in the smaller bin at the top. Fortunately, these don’t need to be replaced. You can clean them out by rinsing them or knocking them out, depending on the filter type.
If that’s a bit of extra work, at least you only have the one bin to empty with this vacuum, as the smaller one empties into the larger one automatically whenever the two are connected. To do this , simply remove it from the main body, open it up and the dirt drops out of the bottom.
Shark PowerDetect Transformer: verdict
The Shark PowerDetect Transformer is an impressive corded upright vacuum that’s as versatile as it is powerful. The cleaning performance is exceptional, while it also records a fantastic result for suction, making it one of the most potent vacuums we’ve tested.
It’s not just all about outright performance, though, as the Transformer is truly one of the most versatile vacuums on the market. It’s just as happy being a hand or stick vacuum for when you don’t need a big upright, and offers equally excellent performance whether you’re cleaning the sofa or performing a deep clean on the landing carpet. The addition of the PowerDetect head helps keep all this as painless as possible, as does the self-emptying smaller bin, plus it all clicks together in on neat package.
The only real pain point I see is price: £500 is a fair amount to pay for a corded upright, especially when you can buy a top quality cordless stick for that money. However, what the cordless stick options provide in lightness and convenience, they lose in versatility and outright performance versus the Transformer. If you’ve been after one vacuum to rule them all, this is the vacuum you need.
