The Shark Steam Mop is pretty basic, but it did clean our floors to a shine in testing and the price is quite nice. All the best steam mops we tested can offer cleaner floors without any chemicals so in that sense the original Shark steam mop is servicable.
There was only one steam mop that took more passes to clean than this one, but the Shark Steam Mop did remove all the dried-on messes, eventually. It was impressive on sticky messes – dried-on orange juice and soda – tying for the fewest number of passes on both. However, it really struggled to get through the spaghetti sauce, and took the most passes to do so.
The lack of a swiveling head drastically hampers the maneuverability. If you have a lot of obstacles to deal with, check out our H2O X5 review – a much more maneuverable option. The Shark Steam Mop is the lightest one we tested, making it easy to carry from place to place.
The Shark Steam Mop had a pretty long run time in our tests, especially considering it had almost the smallest water tank of all. This is one you have to pump in order to generate steam, so some of the running time will depend on how often you do that during your cleaning project.
The low temperatures the Shark produces is a drawback for sanitation and overall cleaning prowess. There are factors besides temperature, including how long you hover over a surface, that affects whether or not you are sanitizing, but we prefer the mops that run hotter. They give you the best chance of killing the most germs.
It's sort of a pain to have to pump constantly to generate steam, and even when we did, the Shark Steam Mop cleaned less efficiently than many competitors. But it did clean without chemicals, and that is the point of any steam mop. Also, it is available for around $50. It does a decent job for that price.
