Verdict

Brilliant cleaning across all types of floor, easy to handle on stairs and a great range of tools make the Shark AZ910UKT an excellent all-rounder. Its new Anti Hair Wrap technology works like a dream, cutting away hairs so that you don't have to deal with reduced performance or clean up the mess yourself. It's powerful, too, coping well with all the jobs we threw at it. A slightly quieter motorised pet tool would have been nice, but that's a minor complaint on an otherwise excellent corded vacuum cleaner.

Pros

• Great cleaning on all surfaces
• Excellent pet hair removal
• No hair stuck in brush roller
• Comprehensive tool roster
• Nice grippy handles
• Easy to remove bin
• Bright LED lights
• Quiet in normal use
• Pretty rose gold finish

Cons

• A little cumbersome
• Very loud with Pet Tool
• Not cheap

The new and improved version of our much-loved Shark AX950UKT, the Shark AZ910UKT promises to abolish having to untangle pet hairs stuck in the brush roll thanks to Anti Hair Wrap technology. Its powerful motor packs a real punch and it can also be used in Lift-Away mode, making stair cleaning a breeze. The rose gold finish looks great, too.

The AZ910UKT further improves on one of our favourite Shark vacuum cleaners with great performance all round, generally quiet operation, and versatile cleaning from upright to stick to Lift-Away modes. It comes with an excellent range of accessories that work wonders on stairs, sofas, dog beds and hard-to-reach spots; edge cleaning is outstanding and pet hairs don’t stand a chance. The Anti Hair Wrap brushes work well and stop the Duo-Clean head from pulling in one direction. The AZ910UKT is the new corded Great White of Shark’s range.

Shark AZ910UKT – What you need to know

• General vacuuming – The Shark sashayed over a range of floor types, effectively picking up a mix of crumbs, debris and general household mess. It was noticeably lighter to handle than previous models and quieter, too: A+ all round.
• Carpet test – A slow pass over a mix of talc and carpet refresher gave us a near-perfect result; close inspection revealed just a tiny piece of residue near the skirting board.
• Hard floor test – One forward motion over spilt oats on kitchen laminate gave us 100% pick-up, and light dust and pet hairs were sucked up with ease.
• Pet hair pick-up – Excellent, brilliant, bravo! The Shark removes pet hair from all floor surfaces and has the perfect tools for sofas and pet beds too. The Anti Hair Wrap brushes worked very well.

Related: Best vacuum cleaner

The Shark AZ910UKT is a flexible vacuum cleaner

Shark AZ910UKT Design – Works hard to remove hair with its new and glitzy Anti Hair Wrap brush

Shark’s previous Duo-Clean Lift-Away cordless, the AX950UKT, was a star performer. The new AZ910UKT promises to build on that reputation with improved performance and its Anti Hair Wrap technology, which features a mix of blades and bristles on the brush bar that are designed to to stop hairs, of the pet or human variety, becoming wrapped around the brush.

Versatile in its operation, with upright, Lift-Away and stick-like cleaning options, the Shark AZ910UKT looks great in its fashionable rose gold colour. It has ultra-grippy handles and fabulously bright LED lights on the floor-head. There are three cleaning modes for different types of flooring and an 8m long cable that can be wrapped around the plastic hooks on the side for easy storage.

The large DuoClean floor-head features a tiger-striped soft brush roll leading the charge and the new Anti-Tangle brush roll behind. They rotate in the same direction, which on previous models has led to the machine having a slight forward drive, increasing resistance when pulling back. The new brush design goes a long way to eliminate that issue. Big wheels at the rear of the head further help the vac to roll smoothly over a number of surfaces.

The Shark AZ910UKT has lost a few grams over its predecessor, now down to around 7kg – but it still isn’t a svelte stick cleaner, if you were contemplating jogging from room to room and up and down the stairs with it.

The new brush design makes the vacuum easier to push

Controls on the handle cover Hard Floor, with the brush bars running slowly and vacuum on full power; Carpet/Low Pile with increased brush bar speed, and Thick Carpet. This maintains the brush bar speed and vacuum power, but vents some of the suction through an outlet on the handle to stop the floor-head getting sucked down into deep carpet.

The brush roll indicator light lives on the left side of the DuoClean floor-head. The colour you want to see is solid green; this means the brush rolls are spinning and working as they should. Solid red is an indication that there’s a jam in the brush roll and/or soft roller and its time for a clear-out, aided by the easy to dismantle rollers.

The well-labelled controls make it easy to pick the right cleaning mode

Shark AX950UKT features – Clean efficiently even close to the edge, thanks to its excellent suction power

You get a good selection of cleaning tools

As always with Shark vacuums, a good selection of well-designed tools is included in the box. Thrown into the mix is an upholstery tool that was excellent for cleaning our chairs in the sunroom, and a good-sized dusting and crevice tool, ideal for skirting edges or hard-to-reach corners. Both are stored on the back of the cleaner.

The enhanced Pet Power tool now features an air-turbo powered brush bar with the same, very effective Anti-Tangle blades as the DuoClean floor-head. We’re not a big fan of air-powered tools – preferring motorised ones instead – since they tend to slow down when the air is restricted and can be noisy.

While Shark’s new Pet Power tool doesn’t seem to slow down too much on thick carpet, it’s seriously noisy. At some 15dB louder than the cleaner itself, it pushed the needle of our sound meter into the red at 87dB – about the same as standing next to a busy road.

While we’re griping about this tool, there’s no tilt in the neck either, so you have to hit just the right angle to keep it flush to flat surfaces. Motorised pet tools and tilting floor plates are better all-round, and plenty of Shark’s competitors offer them.

It’s noisy but the pet tool is great for picking up hair

All that said, the Pet Power tool proved great for stair and sofa cleaning, and pet hair busting across the dog’s furry beds was outstanding. Sure enough, the brush remained free from the sort of hair tangles that afflict normal brush rollers, too.

The cleaner’s handle pops out and away from the body and releases the nicely flexible hose. Your tool of choice simply pushes onto the end of the handle nozzle. For going mobile around the home or reaching higher up areas, you can lift the main body away from the floor-head. You’re obviously tied to the wall within 8m of a plug socket, but that does give decent reach around the home.

You can reach under furniture easily thanks to the flexible handle and hose design

The Shark’s dustbin is a reasonable size and it’s super-easy to empty of its contents too. You simply pull the dust-cup release latch to lift off the cyclone and bin, and release a flap along the bottom edge to dump the contents. Removing the bin also provides access to the washable multi-layer filter system.

Shark AX910UKT performance – Ultra-cleaning flexibility: it can be used as an upright, in above-floor mode, and lifted away

Weighing in at just under 7kg, there’s no denying the Shark is on the cumbersome side of vacuum cleaners. Yet it’s shifted about 0.9kg from the previous AX950UKT and makes a huge difference to the manoeuvrability. Transporting it through different rooms was a breeze, thanks to sturdy wheels and grippy handles.

The LEDs make it easy to spot dust

The LED headlights on the floor-head look super-cool and really help to locate hidden specks of dust and fluff under sofas or cabinets. Cleaning power across both hard floors and carpets is simply excellent, and the new Shark managed to pass every single test we threw at it with flying colours. Not only is the AZ910UKT now lighter, it’s also quieter. At only 70dB on hard floor mode, and little more on carpets (with the faster spinning brushes), this is several decibels quieter than the previous model.

Cleaning performance on hard floors and carpet is impressive

The Shark AZ910UKT glided over all floor types with little of the drive and drag we’ve experienced from previous DuoClean models. It sucked up crumbs and dirt, even deep within carpet pile, wiped up all of the test oats in a single pass, and sucked up pet hair in seconds.

It cleared our talc test and got very close to the skirting edge, and the Anti Wrap technology worked very well. Despite an office with two dogs and more ponytails than a dressage competition, not one hair ended up warped around the new roller. We can’t work out how it works, but works it certainly does.

We were even able to use the AZ910UKT on the stairs with ease thanks to the Powered Lift-Away mode. Overall, we were impressed on all levels with what we think is Shark’s best-corded vacuum yet.

Related: Best cordless vacuum cleaner

Should I buy the Shark AZ910UKT?

If you’re looking for a versatile vacuum cleaner that can be used as an upright, above-floor and lifted away for easy stair cleaning, the Shark AZ910UKT could be just the cleaning whizz you’re looking for.

It aced our oat test on hard floors, delivered excellent cleaning right up to the edge on carpets, and sucked up dog hairs with ease. The Anti Hair Wrap feature worked wonders, with not one hair remaining in the brush roll. Only the Pet Power tool let the side down a little, being rather noisy for an accessory accompanying a cleaner well over £300.

The cleaner looks great in its rose gold colour, the bright LED lights on the floor-head work well and the ultra-grippy handles help the day-to-day ergonomics. It’s a pricey beast, but the AZ910UKT goes a long way to justifying the pennies by being a fabulously effective and versatile cleaning machine.