Opinions sought - Electric Toothbrush

What do you want: a post expensive rechargeable one or a cheapo one with removable batteries? For the latter the Oral-B Braun used to be about a tenner, and Wilko sell a Wisdom for £3.25.

A posh one should last a lot longer than 3-4 years.

I bought a Sonicare Diamondclean for a whopping £80. I hate to say this, but it is worth it. It cleans so much better than the old Sonicare and the brush heads are cheaper.

We've certainly had more than four years out of a pair of rechargable Oral Bs. I think I had more than 10 years out of one before I left it at a hotel. The battery capacity was down by then but not a problem as it lived on a charger. I don't think the speed was down. I had a non-Braun AA one in the distant past, I found the Brauns much better.

AFAIK the main difference with the expensive ones is things like timers (do they also have one which also moves axially?)

Personally, I like the round brushes which have the little rubber paddles in them. Brushes are expensive but you can save a bit on eBay. If there are fake clones around, I havn't detected them.

I also have a Panasonic water-pick which I find effective.

Each Braun I had came with an ever shorter mains lead. The last wouldn't reach the shelf I kept it on and I had to use a previous charger.

I like Oral-B/Braun but I find the battery life disappointing, both time between charges and overall life of the battery. I do not routinely leave it on the charger. I suppose if one does this would be far less of an issue.

I believe they still contain NiMH batteries when the rest of the world has moved on to lithium ion.

Looking at the thread below (at the time of writing) I could suggest that all the hot air comes from Jeremy Corbyn :-)

Presumably you like sonic toothbrushes if you had a Remington Sonic? Not everyone does.

A few years ago, I bought a sonic brush from ALDI for about 18 quid. That was perfectly good and had several programs, and a timer to give 4 x 30 second periods for top/bottom, back/front. Unfortunately it broke in my toilet bag when I was travelling somewhere or other, and I couldn't get another one because ALDI only bring them out for a week or so about once a year.

I looked for the nearest equivalent without spending a fortune, and bought a Philips Sonicare. I've been very impressed with that. It, too, has a timer with 4 x 30 second slots. The battery life is incredible. I usually charge it once a fortnight whether it needs it or not - but I recently used it in Australia for 4 weeks without needing to re-change it.

By way of comparison, my wife's Braun Oral B, with a rotary brush, seems to last less than a week before it needs re-charging.

It might or might not but the device works a lot better with a fully charged battery.

Leave it on the charger when not in use.

The mechanism of the Sonic (Remington) is interesting - merely a rotating out of balance rotor on a flexi shaft. No real friction load on the motor - hence the battery life I guess.

Not necessarily an option 'in Australia for 4 weeks' unless you happen to know RM's itinerary.

Can't easily do that 'cos there no suitable power outlet in the bathroom.

Does it not have an ultrasonic transducer as well? I thought that's what the 'sonic' meant.

Robert

Sonic toothbrushes sound swanky.

Someone gifted me a fancy Oral-B electric toothbrush but I was so unimpressed that I went back to ordinary an toothbrush. The whole world seems to have gone over to electric toothbrushes but I can't see why.

The sonic thing sounds interesting but I think I'm probably kidding myself if I get one because unless it's a true improvement I will probably fall back on my regular toothbrush.

are they related to Dr Who's sonic screwdriver?

That's what they want you to think, sonic is audible frequency, ultrasonic is higher (theoretically anything above 20kHz but in practice for toothbrushes 1.6MHz)

Today I bought an Oral-B in Waitrose for £17.50 ("50% off"), it was £20-25 a few months ago in various places. They also had another Oral-B model at £20, after careful study I decided the only difference for £2.50 was packing in a cardboard box rather than a bubble pack and a different brush head. The charger is the same, so is the handle, and compatible with the same range of heads. I have plenty of spare heads from the old model which is showing signs of battery fatigue so I can afford to wait for the heads to come on 50% off special offer again.

I used to have Oral B - when the batteries lasted for years. Last one was feeble and the batteries died in a fraction of the time. Moved to Philips and am impressed with the better performance and better battery life (so far).

They're far better than manual brushes.

NT