Braun Oral B Professional Care 500 Toothbrush > Reviews (15)

My wife had always wanted an electric toothbrush on the advice of her dentist, and so when we moved into our first house together, this was one of the things that we put on our “to buy” list. Around 5 years ago, and with money obviously tight, we decided to buy the Oral B Professional Care 500 Toothbrush.

This particular toothbrush was my first experience with the joys of electric, and I was keen to see why so many dentists seem to be recommending them. We decided to go with Oral B as they are one of the most recognisable brands in the dental hygiene field and we felt it was one in which we could trust. The toothbrush cost us around £35 at the time, but is now available in most high street electrical shops as well as in the usual places on the Internet and you should be able to pick it up for somewhere in the region of £15-£20.

There is an impressively large looking instruction booklet that is supplied with this toothbrush, but only 2 and a half pages are in English and to be honest it’s not rocket science – you will very likely not need to ever read it, but it does give useful information like “Don’t submerge the charger in water when using”. Insightful? You better believe it!

This toothbrush is still available today in the same packaging as the one we bought. The packaging isn’t particularly great to be honest and rather than receiving a proper box, it comes in that formed hard plastic that grips to the product. As a result it is nigh on impossible to remove without resorting to sharp objects and risking finger removal! I’m being picky really, as most Oral B toothbrushes seem to come in the same way, but first impressions count, and having to go ten rounds and a submission to actually get to the product isn’t a good start in my book.

The style of the unit is very similar to any other Oral B products for those who have seen or used them. The brush unit is reasonably sleek in white and blue, which makes it easy to grip, with the blue parts being rubber to aid gripping when wet. The whole unit is sealed to make it electrically safe in a potentially wet environment and as such is safe to be used by both adults and children alike. Towards the bottom of the unit is an LED, which will flash to show that the unit is running out of charge, and there is approximately 5 minutes of usage left when that starts to happen. The on-off switch is another blue rubber piece towards the top of the shaft, which is simply pressed once to activate and pressed again to stop which isn’t too taxing to remember when half asleep on an early morning start. The top of the unit is simply a small metal prong to which the heads attach to, and this will spin around when activated which in turn spins the attached head to create the motion – simple! The brush is also quite quiet, much more so than I expected to be honest which again is good on an early morning start.

Onto the heads themselves, well these can be any of the Oral B brush heads except for their sonic ones. They generally come in packs of 4 and are colour coded which is a nice little touch.

They are also widely available on the high street or in supermarkets and cost around the £8-£10 mark.

So the most important part of any toothbrush is how well does it actually clean? Well I have to say I am impressed with this unit in this regard. There are two modes on it, sensitive and daily clean. The sensitive one simply slows down the speed a little for those slightly painful areas. Personally I don’t really suffer from sensitive teeth and so the staple setting is the daily one. In addition the brush comes with a timer, which is preset to help you get your 2-minute clean, which dentists recommend. A change in pitch every 30 seconds instructs you to move onto the next quarter of your mouth, and all of this is ideal especially for children to teach them how to thoroughly clean your teeth. I have to say that having never used an electric toothbrush before, I could feel a difference after using this for a couple of days. I’d always thought what a load of rubbish when people on adverts used to say, “Feel the difference”, but after using this I have changed my mind. My mouth does feel noticeably cleaner using this electric brush and one thing, which has improved noticeably, is the amount of irritation of the gums, which I suffer from. In the past my gums have bled pretty easily, and I was always being told at the dentist to use interdental brushes and the like. This hasn’t happened since using this brush and that is a visible sign of the improvement in my oral hygiene since I started using this toothbrush.

Charging the unit is very straightforward, with the brush being placed onto the base unit and left for approximately 8 hours (or overnight as I prefer). The plug is a 2 prong one, and so you will either need to use your shaver point in the bathroom or else use an adaptor at a regular plug point. The unit has a small green light, which will flash when charging and stay on when it is fully charged. I do find that the 8 hours is quite a long time to charge the device and in this age of austerity, probably isn’t the most energy efficient way of doing your teeth, but I still go for it. The unit holds its charge for around about a week with both of us using it twice a day, which isn’t too bad to be fair.

So to sum this one up, I have to say that despite being a basic model of electric toothbrush, I have been very impressed with it over the years. I don’t want lots of fancy settings, all I require is a thorough cleaning which leaves my mouth feeling fresh and that is what this unit provides. The replacement heads are widely available which is a bonus, and it is a hardy piece of kit having given us a good 5 years of service. I will just say that the charger unit for ours has just broken recently, however for the price we paid and the daily usage that its put up with, I am more than happy with the durability of the toothbrush and would not hesitate in recommending it to anyone who wishes to try out an electric toothbrush for the first time, but doesn’t want to pay through the nose for a fancy all singing all dancing model.

Thanks for reading this review and it may also appear on Dooyoo under my same username.