24 November 2006 11:31 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Brushed your teeth recently? Probably this morning right? Well at least we hope so, otherwise the bloke sitting next to you is enjoying that garlic you had for tea last night.

Hoping to stop such a faux pas is the Philips Sonicare e9500 that has everything from two brush head sizes for big and small hard to reach mouths and 2 speeds so you can really work it in the morning.

So what's it like? Well it's fast and buzzing enough to tickle your lips and your tounge when you stray away from your ivories.

Unlike the Braun toothbrush we recently tested, the Sonicare doesn't come with a timer display to let you know how long you've been brushing for, however it does come with an auto switch off feature that automatically beeps at you when you've been brushing for 30 seconds and then completely stops when you've been brushing for 2 minutes - the recommended time for brushing your teeth.

What is helpful though is that if you stop brushing the timer isn't automatically reset unless you put the toothbrush back in its charger or leave it off for more than 30 seconds.

In use, and the brush gives a good clean with the two heads allowing it too be suited to different mouth sizes. It would have been nice to have a polishing brush as an alternative rather than just the two bristle brushes.

As for the two speeds, we didn't really notice the difference between them. According to Philips the e9500 has an easy-start feature that gently increases brushing power over the first 14 brushing sessions helping you get accustomed to brushing with Sonicare. If that's the case, we were either prepared for it, or it's so fine an increase that we didn't notice one bit.

Verdict

At £100 the Philips Sonicare has some nice features and is certainly more affordable than the Oral-B Triumph Professional Care 9500DLX that we reviewed. However we are still hard pushed to see how this beats the Braun Oral-B D12 Vitality priced at under £20.

You'll go for this for the charger and the 2 minute timer. If they are important to you then this is a good choice. If not, then we recommend the considerably cheaper option.

Philips sonicare website

Score

Review Recap

Made by

Philips

Price as reviewed

£100

The good

Two brush sizes, two minute timer

The bad

Can't seem to see the difference between the two speeds available

Quick verdict

You'll go for this for the charger and the 2 minute timer. If not, then we recommend looking for a cheaper option.

Score

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