Towards the end of 2009, after going to get my teeth cleaned and suffered sensitive gum bleeding for the billionth time, I began researching about electric toothbrushes. After looking through the different types and reading about them and discussing this with Mike Z, we decided to go with the best recommended toothbrush at the time, the Oral-b ProfessionalCare Smartseries 5000. It was likely the most expensive toothbrush at the time too, selling for close to $200 in Canada before tax. But i think one of the exciting thing was that I was now living in the US and it was about $110 with no tax and a $20 rebate (which I had completely forgotten about after we got it). The price wasn't that much more after rebate than other leading brands at the time and this one was #1 on all the sites so we went with it.
I was really happy with my toothbrush after receiving it. At first i'd still use a manual toothbrush when i got lazy, but after a while I only used the electric one. There are a couple of modes on the toothbrush but i never bothered figuring out how to use them and stuck with daily clean and floss action brush head in all the 3+ years i've owned this. With daily flossing, my dentist visits were a lot less agonizing. There were still some bleeding because my gum is built that way, but significantly reduced.
Recently, my toothbrush battery life has been dwindling. At full charge, the toothbrush can only last about 2-3 days before it completely dies so I started to worry about it completely dying on me soon. I checked the prices of the toothbrush in Europe, as I now have moved to France, and they were all significantly more expensive than the US (though not as expensive as canada for some reason -.-).
I bought the toothbrush off of Amazon again and I was led to believe I was buying this:
I had it delivered to NYC. When my friend Elliott went to see his gf there, he brought it back to London for me. Brand new in a sealed box - fantastic. And then I took a closer look at the box:
I had it delivered to NYC. When my friend Elliott went to see his gf there, he brought it back to London for me. Brand new in a sealed box - fantastic. And then I took a closer look at the box:
The box said it was Oral-b Professional Healthy Clean + Floss Action - Precision 5000 (how's that for a mouthful), and not Smartseries. At this point I started to panic. I went online and frantically searched for the differences between Precision 5k and Smartseries 5k. I mean, it's a $100 toothbrush...did I get ripped off? Although I never found confirming evidence that the two branding was the same, I noticed that a lot of sellers and mom and dad reviewers were calling the toothbrush one name, while the box says another. Some have reviews for smartseries but show box for precision, some have review titles for precision but the box say precision.
P&G Red Flag #1: Note that most of the "reviews" I found online were all stay-at-home mom and pops who were given the toothbrush for free and then asked to write a review for them on their blog. If you were to google "Smartseries 5000 reviews" You will get a TON of advertisements masked as reviews. They were not real reviews, but basically copied and pasted the features so they can get a free toothbrush. This made finding real reviews really difficult.
I also noticed at this point that these toothbrush all have different names depending on the country in which they were being marketed. For example, in the UK, the toothbrush is named Triumph 5000. Interestingly, the toothbrush, being made in Germany, also has the name Triumph 5000 across the side of the handle for both my old one and my new one. I tweeted to Oral-B and they were very quick to respond and it was confirmed that they are the same type:
After some more digging (Caleb wants to know why I spend so much time on something so insignificant.....and decided that I was too curious for my own good), it looks like they have been rebranding for the last two years and all the sites are as confusing as their own site.
As far as I can tell at this point, they were doing away with the name Smartseries 5000, and there's a really good reason for this. If you are considering buying the 5000 series, I would advise you to CHECK to see if you are getting the Smartseries or the Precision, as there are DIFFERENCES. But no websites ever tell you about them nor do sellers differentiate them so when you purchase it, you can be buying one or the other. See my next post: Oral-b Smartseries 5000 vs. Healthy Clean + Floss Action Precision 5000
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5 comments:
I recently bought my first electric toothbrush (it's pink!)
I was super excited about it.
But, I must say, it's been a month and I still prefer my manual toothbrush. The electric one is just too heavy for my liking.
I also don't like the fact it vibrates.
But I'm just hoping it's better for my teeth, that's the only saving grace.
i haven't tried all the different types of toothbrush, but honestly this one really makes a difference. when i first got it i totally wasnt used to it and would still use manual ones regularly, but eventually it completely wont me over and i haven't used a regularly one for years now. i really think it's just about getting used to it.
which one do you have?
I have a pink Oral B! But I don't remember the sub brand!
So which is the right one to get from US so we can bring to UK which voltage is 220v?
The old smartseries 5000
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