I hardly ever buy anything without doing research, these days. I did a lot of research on this purchase because the prices range from about $30 - $250 for the most popular brands of hand vacs. I have previously owned a hand vac that was a big let down, from a major name that everyone knows. At the time, I thought well, this manufacturer is well known for good products- should be safe to go with, but no. I was very disappointed with that unit- it had some major flaws for me, that I wanted to avoid this time. I want quality- I'm willing to pay a little more for something that will serve me well. I also have to balance that with how much it will be used. I was willing to pay the $250 for the top of the line in this category (although I didn't want to pay that much), if it met certain criteria. Some of these criteria are not shared by everyone. I live in a smallish condo- I don't have tons of space for everything I could want and certainly not out on the counters. My previous hand vac needed to always be plugged in, if I wanted it charged and ready. Who wants to wait 2 hours after a mess happens to charge something up, or have to deal with cords and finding plugs nearby? The problem with this, is it was large and ugly. It looked like one of the sad, older robots on the Jawa land crawler- some of you know what I'm talking about. It was an eye sore to look at, and took up a lot of counter space- so I wouldn't and sometimes couldn't leave it on the kitchen counter- I needed to store it somewhere, and it would invariably would not be charged when I needed it. Add to that, it just didn't work very well- it was awkward to hold, heavy and didn't have much suction- and on top of all that, didn't last very long. I had it about a year and then chucked it in the trash. Well I needed a new one, so I started to do my research. I watched all the youtube comparisons, read all the reviews, looked at what was online and in-stores. I compared prices, battery times, suction- style- every thing you could think of. The most expensive ones had some of the problems I mentioned above- you need a lot of space for these things, or you need a docking station that goes on a wall (I don't have a convenient place for that next to a plug)- otherwise the thing has to be stored...and I have bad memories of all that. It also turns out, the most expensive models don't really last all that much longer on battery than most of the others. What they do have, is great suction. So does this one, for it's size- it's one common thing that reviewers said about it, and they are right. I decided on this Shark, and I'm quite pleased with it. It is stylish- modern, sleek, light. It's not an eye sore sitting on my counter and doesn't take up much space. Because of all that, it's always charged and ready for little clean ups. I actually clean up all the small leaves that land on my outdoor patio with it, when it gets windy here (I stress that they are small leaves). It does a satisfyingly decent job of this. It's true I have to empty it several times when doing this- the cup is small- but's a one-click and drop easy, 2-second clean. The 10 minute charge is just enough to clean my whole patio of small leaves and tiny twigs. It's actually fun to use, like a Harry Potter magic wand- I look around the house hoping to find some small crumbs or something so I can zap it. It's long enough that I can suction up a cobweb dangling down from the ceiling on occasion. I'm very pleased with my purchase- Shark has a winner, here.