Electric Toothbrushes – Gadget Show Test

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The Gadget Show (Channel 5, Monday nights at 8pm) recently ran a review segment on electric toothbrushes. Following a pretty thorough test the joint winners were the Oral B Trizone 5000 and the Philips Diamond Clean.

As my family has owned both toothbrushes over the last few years there were a couple of points I wanted to add to the review that may affect your buying decision (if you follow the above links then you’ll see that I’ve left the same comments there too).

In the past we’ve had quite a few Oral Bs but we’ve always been disappointed with the battery life so when our current 5000 died we decided to opt for the Philips Diamond Clean.

The Philips Diamond Clean is considerably more expensive than the Oral B but looks better and feels nicer in the hand. It’s a definite premium product, the charging glass looks nice and the travel case is very sturdy and doubles as the charger (via USB).

However, there are two main downsides for us:

  • The heads do not have any means of differentiation so, in a family bathroom where the handle is shared, you need to ensure you keep your heads separate and remember whose is whose. The Oral B has small plastic coloured rings that snap onto the bottom of the brush head; a very simple, but effective idea.
  • The heads do not last very long. Apparently, they should last for three months but, after only six weeks of brushing twice a day for two minutes, the blue indicator bristles are now white and the bristles have started to splay out.

    • Both of these issues should be relatively simple for Philips to sort out but, at the moment, when the Diamond Clean battery finally gives up, we think we will return to the Oral B.

    Poppa G

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