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Roombas and Dysons make it fun to vacuum, but let’s admire something much less exciting and a lot more sensible: the original, lilac-colored Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV350 Series, a bagless, upright, and—gasp!—plug-in vacuum.

We’ve written at length about all the things that make this vacuum so great. And now that it’s been around for more than a decade, the time has come to recognize the lilac Shark as one of the crowning achievements of vacuum design.

This reliable, effective, easy-to-use, and reasonably priced bagless upright vacuum cleaner will work well in most homes, and it’s been our pick for seven years running.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $190.

The original Navigator launched in fall 2010. It wasn’t the first Shark vacuum cleaner, but this was still a relatively unknown brand. If you’d heard of these vacuums at all, it might have been because you fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up at 3 a.m. in the middle of an infomercial.

In late 2013, for my first project at Wirecutter, I tested both the lilac-colored Navigator NV352 and the Dyson Ball, the premier vacuum of the time. And it was obvious then that the Shark was the far better option for the money. The NV352 was unusually easy to maneuver, even around my small apartment, and it was excellent at cleaning hard-to-reach spaces, thanks to the lift-away feature. This vacuum also seemed to clean nearly as well as much pricier models. And because of the NV352’s modular design, it was simple to clear clogs and to replace individual parts as they broke. Parts were covered under an uncommonly long five-year warranty, without having to bring or ship the vacuum to a technician in most cases.

This 14-minute ad for the Navigator Lift-Away, from 2011, really comes out swinging against the Dyson Ball. The commercial must have been pretty cringe, even at the time (“Allo, this is me fancy new Dyson vacuum … blimey!”) But it raised valid points. For less than half the price, the Shark delivered most of the same features as the Dyson, as well as some extras—the lift-away canister was truly unique, for example. (Plus a free steam mop, if you order now!)

Still, the Shark didn’t quite make the cut as Wirecutter’s top pick. After interviewing a lot of “vacuum gatekeepers,” such as shop owners and repair techs, I came away with the conclusion that the best vacuum for most people was actually a $400 upright that used expensive bags and filters and weighed nearly 20 pounds. I realized over time that this was a mistake, and I convinced my editors in 2015 that we needed to promote the Shark to our top slot.

A lot has changed in the years since then. Cordless vacuums have much more suction and battery life now, and robot vacuums are much smarter. But the lilac Shark is still the vacuum we recommend to most people first, and nothing has come very close to knocking it from that pedestal.

So how did a company with so little experience building vacuums come up with this thing? And why has it endured?

If there’s some key feature or sneaky-smart engineering that makes the Navigator Lift-Away work so well, Shark wouldn’t tell me about it—the company just gave me standard corporate answers about trying to make great products that consumers will love. Even after I watched a couple of videos on how to disassemble and repair the lilac Navigator, it simply does not look like there’s anything fancy going on inside this vacuum.

Shark’s lift-away feature was a genuine innovation that made the vacuum easier to use—sometimes. But you could use this thing exclusively as a standard upright vacuum and still think it’s excellent. My guess: It’s just a highly optimized version of a basic bagless vacuum cleaner, with great handling and easy maintenance.

There have been plenty of new variants of the Navigator Lift-Away, but we don’t think any of them are obviously better than the original. Some new models have useful extras like headlights or anti-tangle combs or a powered brush roll in lift-away mode—all of which can be useful and worth paying extra for if you’re interested. But they’re just small tweaks to the same base. And some of them just don’t suck up as much stuff as the classic model, or they have bulky cleaning heads that are awkward to steer. (Most of the new Navigators are made by a different manufacturer than the original lilac versions were, according to publicly available import records, and this might have something to do with it.)

Even Shark seems almost ambivalent about the continued existence of the lilac Navigator. You have to look really hard to find it listed on Shark’s website, even though it’s still one of the best-selling vacuums at several major retailers. If Shark is hiding this model from the people who come to its website, why is it still around at all?

“It remains really highly rated, and we hear from consumers all the time that they love the product,” said Julien Levesque, vice president of Global Product Development at SharkNinja. Even as Shark launches new models with updated features, “there’s something about having options that are tried and true.”

We’ve tested dozens of vacuums of all types, and the original Shark Navigator Lift-Away is the first model that we’d recommend to most people.

Read more in our guide to the best vacuum cleaners.

The best deals we’ve seen have been around Black Friday and Prime Day, with the occasional deal in spring and early summer.

Best price we’ve ever seen: $98

The Navigator Lift-Away needs very little maintenance, and its parts are all designed to last for the lifetime of the vacuum.

If the vacuum won’t suck, it probably just needs some basic upkeep. Make sure to clean the filters, cut away tangled hair from the brush, and look for clogs in the head and hoses. If that doesn’t work, there are plenty of do-it-yourself repair videos on YouTube to help you figure it out.

When a part is obviously cracked or damaged, Shark’s customer service can help you determine what to do next. If you need replacement parts, they’re covered under warranty for the first five years of ownership, and they’re very easy to swap in at home, with only basic tools.

Motor trouble is the only exception. It’s a tricky fix, and you’re on the hook for shipping costs. This is a rare problem, though.

Liam McCabe is a former senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since 2011. After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars. He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times.

by Tim Heffernan and Liam McCabe

by Liam McCabe and Michelle Ma

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