Sonic

I first bought a Sonicare toothbrush in about 1996, having been introduced to it by my dentist's office. It was for my mother but as she wouldn't use it I wound up with it and found it an excellent product which made teeth so clean the hygeinist praised me for my dedicated flossing (haha!). I had that brush for many years, replacing brush heads and battery and as I lost dexterity it became more and more important.

The little independant Washington company that'd invented it was bought out by elecronics giant Philips, and for a while everything was the same. Then they made it an all-in-one sealed systen so the battery was not replaceable. The brush heads became shockingly cheap, with straggly bristles.

The end came for me because the last two I've bought lasted about a year each. A year is not long enough as the initial expense is quite a lot of money. When the last one died a couple of weeks ago I switched to an Oral-B sonic toothbrush, which had a 50% rebate and which seems to have decent customer service.

I've been using it for a week now and I can say it works very well, the brush head is well-made, the design is sleek (the battery alas, is not replaceable, but I knew that). We shall see how it operates in the future. It's too bad that Philips ruined the Sonicare, but at least I had an alternative.