If you want to effectively pick up debris like sand from shaggy carpet or rice from tile flooring, knowing a vacuum's suction power, airflow, and wattage can be beneficial.

That said, it uses the same 1200W suction motor, resulting in a similarly great overall debris pickup. The Shark IZ320UKT is a cordless vacuum cleaner with clout and could easily be the only vacuum you need for your entire house. You’ll get a plug to charge wherever you like, but you can also connect it to a wall mount (which has to be attached to your wall, and will become your charging station).

For more options, look at our lists of the best vacuums, our best cordless stick vacuums, and the best vacuums for high-pile carpet. In our tests it was faster and less ‘dithery’ than other robot vacs, forming a confident map of its surroundings.

If you need to seriously deep clean your carpets, this will do just the trick, though it is seriously hefty. Cordless vacuums use less electricity than traditional vacuum cleaners, since they have smaller motors and only draw power when they’re recharging.It’s reliable, sturdy and considerably more powerful than most (only the Halo Capsule below outperforms it), but for many the standout feature will be the removable dust pod which gives dust-free emptying. The cylinder moves smoothly on its castors and perches acceptably on a stair, though it's not the easiest to clean this section of the house with. Weight and manoeuvrability are priorities, she says, as “no one wants to carry around a very heavy hoover, or to keep looking for yet another switch if the cord is too short. It performs all the essential tasks of vacuuming effortlessly, without the need for any of the super-sophisticated features that make other models with similar stats so expensive.