Sometime around the turn of the century I started using the best electronic toothbrush. Might as well since I use the best electric shaver. I’ve never gone back to the manual version, and nor would I. My teeth have never felt cleaner and my visits to the dentists are met with less agony. Plus they’re quicker and I I’d like to think they leave a smile on my hygienist’s face. But that isn’t to say all electric tooth brushes are made equally. Some are nothing more than rotating bristles propelled by an underpowered motor that probably can’t be much better than the manual version, while others are excessively expensive and are merely a rebadged version of a cheaper model. With any toothbrush, you should always ask yourself, “How does your mouth feel?”
Sonicare’s DiamondClean is unlike any other toothbrush I’ve scrubbed my teeth with. While competing brushes completely seal the battery and motor into the body, they’re often riddled with crevices. Crevices that allow water and bacteria to seep in. If you own an Oral-B, take a look at the charging contact and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The DiamondClean, however, is a completely sealed package that is perfectly finished all around. It’s not completely devoid of a seem, but it’s about as damn close as you can get. The would be contact point for the battery, is sealed with a metal concave facade and leave little to no room for water and bacteria to build up. Ultimately, the DiamondClean is easy to clean and more importantly easier to keep clean.
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Included in the package are a few accessories. Sonicare includes a glass cup for stowing the DiamondClean when it’s not in use. It keeps the brush off the counter, and while water inevitably collects in the base it’s easy enough to washout after each use. Instead of using the traditional inductive charging point as found on Oral-B and Sonicare’s older electric toothbrushes, the DiamondClean includes a charging base that meshes with the included cup. To charge you just blindly drop the DiamondClean into it – that’s it. When the battery is running low, the battery indicator light will begin to glow to indicate that you have about a-week’s worth of brushes left. When it gets even lower, the brush will pulse a few times during the brushing cycle. In the event that you’re on the road, or travel a lot, Sonicare also bundles in a travel case that can hold up to two brush heads (a small and large one) and plugs into any micro-USB plug for charging. Much like the glass charger, you just simply place the DiamondClean into the case.
In use the DiamondClean is very straightforward and all the while provides one of the best brushings my teeth have experienced. A 2-minute timer – the ideal scrubbing time – is built-in to the DiamondClean, causing it to pulse every 30-second indicating when you should move to a new quadrant. Of course, that’s assuming you’ve selected “clean”, which is just one of five cleaning options. “White”, which uses a slightly more aggressive, but slower brushing frequency, calls for a 2.5-minute cycle, while “polish” is intended for use after you’ve completed the full 2-minute cleaning cycle. There is also a “Gum” cleaning option, as well as a “Sensitive” mode for those that can’t take the tingle of 100s of bristles gyrating in your mouth. That said, it did take me a few days to get acclimated to the DiamondClean, but I’m accustom to using an electric toothbrush, so your experience may vary slightly.
During my prolonged testing I used “Clean” 90% of the time and occasionally dabbled in the “White” and “Polish” options. The “Clean” mode is a simple 2-minute scrub that can be best described as a medium frequency. “Polish” is a higher frequency, and “White” is probably a happy medium between the two, though it’s questionable how effective each truly are. “Clean” sufficed just fine for me, and after a wide array of tests with the two other modes, I can say they’re more for show than anything else. However, the DiamondClean is an exceptional electric toothbrush, and as Sonicare states, it removes “5x more plaque than a manual” and “whitens 2x better than a manual”, which can be attributed to the DiamondClean’s ability to produce 31,000 brush strokes per minute. Whitening without bleaching is difficult to come by, and since I’ve been using an Oral-B for years now, it’s likely I’ve maxed out my teeth’s whiteness, at least in terms of an electric toothbrush. I tested the “White” feature by only brush my front upper teeth for a few weeks time – I couldn’t notice a difference between them and the bottom ones.
The Sonicare DiamondClean’s battery is exactly on par with the company’s spec; 3-weeks. And best of all, unlike some other electric toothbrushes, it doesn’t suffer from a power loss when it draws closer to its battery running out of juice thanks to the Lithium-ion technology. Since the travel case has a built-in charger, and the DiamondClean’s battery last for 3-weeks again and again, it makes it one of the most suitable electric toothbrushes to take on the road. The variety of brushing features may not produce vastly different results over their counterparts, it’s still stands as a compelling brushing experience, and if not for nothing, one that feels as though it’s the best you can get, even if it costs over $200.
Bottom Line: Get the DiamondClean – your teeth and gums will be so happy, the $200 price tag will seem like a drop in the bucket.
Editor’s Rating:
[rating:4.5/5]
Excellent
Pros:
- Excellent 3-week battery life
- Completely sealed body that won’t collect bacteria
- Exceptionally easy home and travel charger
Cons:
- Expensive; $220
- White and Polish brush features are questionably effective
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