Black+Decker Vacuums

Black+Decker started as a machine shop in Baltimore and is now a brand of Stanley Black & Decker. Its place in vacuums comes from the dustbuster, a cordless handheld it launched in 1979. The cordless motor work behind it grew out of drills the company built for the Apollo missions. More than four decades on, the models listed here are still handhelds and light sticks rather than full-size machines.

There are two ladders. The dustbusters are handhelds: the AdvancedClean+ ($75) is the plain crumbs-and-car tool, the FLEX ($90) adds a 4-foot hose and a pet brush, and the furbuster AdvancedClean+ Pet ($99) adds a motorized pet brush in exchange for a 10-minute rated runtime. The FLEX with Floor Head ($150) is the same FLEX body sold with a stick attachment. The POWERSERIES Extreme ($180) and its Pet trim ($185) are proper sticks built on the 20V MAX battery, which Black+Decker says is removable and fits its other tools of the same voltage. The Pet version mainly adds a larger bin, an LED floor head and pet accessories.

Owners describe the POWERSERIES sticks as better on carpet than the price suggests, and the anti-tangle brush bar earns praise from pet households. Their complaints are consistent: suction fades when the washable filter is not rinsed and fully dried, the floor head pushes larger debris around on hard floors, and the 55-minute rating is a low-power figure. Owners put it at about 11 minutes on max for the Pet model. On the plain Extreme, owners also report brushrolls that stop spinning and wheels that seize. Dustbuster owners report long service lives, with some FLEX units still running after seven years, but note that the battery is sealed into the handle.

That is the main thing to check here. The POWERSERIES pack comes out and can be replaced or shared with a drill, while the dustbuster handhelds have a sealed battery, so the handheld goes when its battery wears out.