As my last electric toothbrush was on its last legs I snapped this up while it was on a sale, heavily discounted. Even so, it still felt a heck of a lot to be spending on a toothbrush and I was a little anxious to see how good an investment this would turn out to be...

It comes packaged in a rather large box, containing the toothbrush handle, two brush heads (one large, one small), plastic caps to put over the brush heads, a travel case, and a charging station which also comes with a UV sanitiser for cleaning the brush heads as well as a basic travel charger. The brush heads clip easily on and off the toothbrush and you're pretty much ready to go after that, but I'd recommend skimming through the instruction leaflet first as this electric toothbrush works a little bit differently to most.

It offers a selection of five different brush modes - Clean, gum care, refresh, sensitive and massage. You switch between them by pressing a button on the front panel of the brush and the selected mode is brightly illuminated just below it. In its default "clean" mode (the only one I really use), it encourages you to brush your teeth in four 30-second segments, with a slight pause and a buzz indicating when it's time to switch to the next segment. This rather encourages you to dedicate enough time to brushing the entirety of your teeth by making you aware of the timings as you go. It might take a little getting used to, being essentially bossed about by a toothbrush, but it's soon something you settle into. Another thing that will need some adjusting to is the contact of the brush on your teeth initially. The vibrations of the brush (stated to be some 31,000 strokes per minute) felt somewhat unsettling on my teeth on my first few days of using this, tickling them a bit as the bristles did their work scrubbing the teeth and spraying water all around my mouth. It doesn't last too long though; maybe a few days as I said, before it starts to feel comfortable keeping the brush to your teeth and slowly moving it around your mouth to give full coverage to your teeth and gums.

And it is worth the initial discomfort. After a thorough brushing my teeth feel well and truly clean and polished, and this continues to be the case some three months after purchasing it. Next comes cleaning the brush head, which instead of simply running it through a hot tap you also have the UV sanitiser, which you simply place the detached head into and switch on to bathe it in UV light for about 10 minutes; killing a number of germs in the process (stated to be up to 99%) ready for the next use. It's also a perfect place just to store the brush heads instead of leaving them exposed to the open air where germs could collect on them by your next brush. As a complete package, there is little doubt in my mind that this is the most complete dental hygiene product available anywhere.

The downside then, pretty much comes exclusively from the price of admission. For starters, this thing has an RRP of over £200 which sounds crazy for a toothbrush no matter how good. That it is available online for typically about half that doesn't really weaken the argument against it either; this is definitely no impulse buy. In addition, if you follow the recommendation to replace the brush heads every three months then you are going to need to buy them from somewhere. Three brush heads carry an RRP of around £20 and again, although they can be had much cheaper online you are still looking at around a £4-5 spend per brush. And then you may have to have the bulb in the sanitiser replaced at some point, although they are expected to last around 5 years with normal use.

So bascially, very, very nice brush . If you can afford the expense or can find it at a massive discount then I would seriously recommend investing in one. If you can't justify the price though, there are more bare bones Sonicare models available which, although without the sanitiser, should still make fantastic toothbrushes as I doubt they would be much inferior models to the one included in this package.