The Best Electric Toothbrushes Reviewed

The iO Series 6 (AKA the iO6) is the latest iO brush from Oral-B. The Series 6 is the most budget-friendly of the lot, as it has a monochrome rather than a colour screen and instead of a magnetic charging puck, it comes with a standard two-pin charger.

But for a less wallet-damaging price, you’ll still get Oral-B’s best-ever cleaning performance, as well as genuinely good brushing guidance from the accompanying app. 

One note on the price: don’t buy it at its £300 RRP. You’ll often find it available for £110, so if you want one and can’t find a deal now, bide your time.  

Read our full Oral-B iO Series 6 review

This is one of the best brushes around for cleaning performance. It’s extremely powerful and provides a number of different brushing options and intensities.

In terms of features, it has a pressure sensor on the handle, as well as a timer to let you know when to move between sections of your mouth and when you’ve reached the end of the recommended brushing period.

Accessories-wise, it comes with a charging puck for a two-pin bathroom plug and a sleek travel case with a concealed USB lead.

It’s app-connected and, while the app can help you to keep your brushing schedule organised (keeping track of your brushing routine, scheduling dental appointments and re-ordering brush heads), it won’t offer advice on improving your technique. 

Read our full Philips Sonicare DiamondClean 9000 review

The iO Series 9 is Oral-B’s best brush yet for performance, using micro-vibrations to remove plaque and polish teeth. It has seven brushing settings, a countdown timer and a pressure sensor, which makes it the most comprehensive brush for measuring your brushing performance.

It’s also app-connected, and you can get real-time feedback on how much coverage you’re achieving as you brush. The rest of the app’s features are much less useful, amounting to a series of different ways of logging your brushing sessions.

Of course, with the iO, it’s all about the full-colour OLED screen, which is both useful and somewhat ridiculous. But what you gain in display information, you lose in battery, with battery life lasting less than two weeks.

Read our full Oral-B iO Series 9 review

The Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean 6100 is a toothbrush built and designed for people who want to spend a decent chunk of money on a top-of-the-line brush, but aren’t sold on the new fad for connected features and app support.

So yes, it won’t connect to your phone, but it’ll do just about everything else, with three brushing modes and another three intensity settings, which pair with the new BrushSync tech so that the brush will automatically adjust to the optimum setting for any given brush head. It’ll also use the same microchip tech to give an accurate assessment of when it’s time to swap to a new brush head that’s based on your actual usage.

Beyond that, the design is slick and modern, there’s a good choice of colours and brush heads available, and it comes with a sturdy travel case. Plus the battery life actually exceeds Philips‘ claim of 14 days – ours ran for over three weeks before it ran out of juice.

Read our full Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean 6100 review

Smart toothbrushes tend to over-promise and under-deliver, and to some extent the same is true with the Genius X. To bill this as AI-driven is really pushing it, especially since it doesn’t learn as it goes.

Still, tracking is more accurate than any other smart brush I’ve tested so far, with feedback at the end that really is useful – all in the sort of premium package you’d expect from a brush at this level. We just wish that syncing the brush to the app was easier, and that there was better support for couples or families sharing the same brush handle.

The average user will probably stop bothering with the smart features eventually anyway – but even if you do, at least you’re still getting a top quality electric brush with a range of options and modes.

Read our full Oral-B Genius X review

This light, all-silicone, sonic brush has been designed with style and simplicity in mind. There’s no app, no screen, no sensors or lights and no way to change brushing modes. 

The silicone bristles are gentler on gums and tooth enamel than standard nylon and make a real difference to the brushing experience. 

It’s also waterproof and, in conjunction with its sleek charging case, claims to give you an incredible four months of battery life, so it would be a good buy for frequent travellers.

However, the very fact that it’s so light on features means that it won’t be right for everyone. The brush pauses every thirty seconds to let you know you should move on to the next section of your mouth and it switches off automatically after two minutes. But that’s all the feedback you’ll get.

Read our full PomaBrush review

We were impressed with the Oral-B Genius 8000 and 9000 for many reasons: excellent plaque cleaning, comfortable brush and handle, brush-head options, travel case, and long battery life. 

However, we found the app’s functionality didn’t live up to its promise. The Position Detection is a great idea, but we found it tricky to get right. When used just to advise and monitor mouth-quadrant brushing it was more successful but not as sophisticated as it thinks it is.

But as a premium electric toothbrush both the Genius 8000 and 9000 certainly live up to the hype. Neither is cheap but compared to the cost of a visit to the dentist, using a quality toothbrush is a wise financial decision as well as a healthy one.

Read our full Oral-B Genius 9000/8000 review

A combination of Japanese technology and German design, the ION-Sei certainly looks good. Of the two colours, go for Lake Blue as it should make a stylish addition to your bathroom.

Fashion is, of course, secondary to actual teeth cleaning and it’s here that the tech lies. Unlike other sonic toothbrushes – or any other electric toothbrush we’ve seen – this one generates a stream of ions and a weak electric charge which actively stops bacteria growing in your mouth. When combined with the sonic mechanism, it makes your teeth feel exceptionally clean even if that’s partly psychological since you can’t feel the bacteria in the first place.

You pay a steep price for the tech: not only is the ION-Sei expensive but it doesn’t come with a travel case or have some expected features such as pressure detection or a head-replacement indication.

It is rechargeable via USB though, which is handy.

Read our full Sanyei ION-Sei review

The Oral-B Pro 2 2000 is a straightforward brush.

Its features are simple: there are only two brushing modes and a pressure sensor, with no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth features, and no app support. However it works well, is comfortable to use, and boasts a two-week battery life – not bad for the price.

A spare brush head or two in the pack would have been welcome, along with a more detailed battery indicator, but these are small complaints about a brush that does a very good job for a very low price.

Read our full Oral-B Pro 2 2000 review

The Oral-B Pro 6000 and Pro 6500 SmartSeries electric toothbrushes use wireless technology to sync with a neat smartphone app. The most important thing is to brush each section of your mouth without too much pressure and for the right length of time.

The brushes are top quality, and now that the price has come down they represent good value.

We’d also love to see the app get a bit smarter about brushing techniques, as opposed to just duration and frequency of brushing. 

Read our full Oral-B Pro 6000 SmartSeries review