Best Canister Vacuums

The floor head decides a canister's tier more than the motor does. Most of the household models here run motors in the same 1,200-1,250 W band, so price tracks what sits at the end of the wand. Suction-only heads come first: the Eureka WhirlWind ($80), Simplicity Jill ($180), Miele Classic C1 Pure Suction ($309), Sebo K2 Kombi ($499), Miele Guard L1 AllFloor ($566) and Boost CX1 ($589). They suit hard floors and rugs and do little for pile. Air-driven turbine heads, spun by airflow, come next on the Miele C1 Turbo Team ($369), Guard L1 Cat & Dog ($625) and Prolux Tritan ($220). A true electric powerhead with its own brush motor arrives on the Kenmore 600 and 700 Series ($280 and $460), the Miele C1 Cat & Dog ($663) and Guard L1 Electro ($1,067), and Sebo's K3, E3 and D4 Premium ($949 to $1,449). Sebo's ET-1 head runs a 175 W brush motor through a toothed belt with overload protection and four manual height settings.

Commercial backpacks are filed here too, and they are a different purchase. The ProTeam ProVac FS 6 ($540) and the now-discontinued Super CoachVac are corded and rated by airflow in CFM rather than by motor watts, and the cordless Sanitaire Transport ($839) and ProTeam GoFree Flex Pro II ($1,988) trade airflow for battery runtime. Treat these as tools for a cleaning crew, not for a living room.

Next to an upright, a canister puts the weight on the floor rather than in your arms, which helps on stairs and under beds. The cost is towing a body on a hose, a technique some owners of the Pure Suction and Kenmore 700 never warm to. Bagged machines dominate the type, so filters and bags are a running cost on everything except the bagless Boost CX1 and Eureka, and Miele's newer Guard L1 bags are smaller and patented with no third-party alternative yet. The other complaint owners repeat across brands is reach: cords on the Classic C1 family, the E3 and the Guard L1 leave larger homes replugging. Owners of the Turbo Team report its turbine head bogging down on plush pile, the reason deep-carpet homes are pointed toward an electric head. At the budget end, Kenmore 600 owners report early failures on a minority of units and Prolux owners describe hoses and fittings loosening within months.