alanp's Full Review: Philips Norelco 7310XL Electric Shaver
It's 2008 now, the last electric razor (also Norelco) I bought was from 2000. It was time for a replacement seeing how the battery on the old one would only last me one shave. I obviously haven't used many electric shavers in the past plus I'm not the type to be extremely picky about super close shaves and what not. That being said, I find this razor to work very well. I normally start my reviews with a breakdown of the features, but this razor is pretty barebones so there isn't much to say about it in terms of features so let me just continue with a list of things that I find very useful.
The biggest plus I find is the corded/cordless modes, you can use it in either mode. My previous razor only worked in cordless mode, so when the battery was dead, even if you had it plugged in, you'd have to wait several hours for it to charge before you could use it. This one is great, even if the battery is dead, plug it in and you're good to go.
Another plus is the LED indicator that indicates when it's fully charged: solid when plugged in and charging, blinking when it's done charging. Some of you may find this to be expected, but on my old razor, even though there was an LED, it didn't indicate whether the battery was full or not, it was always on when you plugged the razor in to charge..... pretty useless LED on the old one. This one actually tells you something.
You can just rinse it with water to clean! Just pop open the triple head on it, rinse it with warm water, close it, shake it semi-dry (don't want to shake it with head open!), open it again, and let it fully dry. Just make sure it's not plugged in while you rinse it. It's so much easier than the old Norelco I had which required you to open up the head and use a manual little brush to clean after every use for optimal performance. However, on this razor, it's still recommended to do a manual/more thorough cleaning with the little brush every month or so.
Battery life claims to be 30min. That's about good for 10 shaves. I've gone though about 5 so far on my first charge, and it's still going strong. Good enough for me, even if it only lasts me to 7 or 8 shaves! And again, with the corded/cordless operation modes, it'll be no big deal to plug it in again in case I accidentally drain the battery too low.
Performace? Well, considering my old elecrtic razor was 8 years old, this one performs SUPERBLY. But, the ultimate comparison, I suppose, would be to compare it to a manual razor. This one is pretty close, at least closer than expected. Every now and then, when I use a manual razor to shave, it shaves so close compared to my old electric that it stings. This one, while not quite as close as the manual razor, was close enough to give me the stinging sensation on my skin. And I did not have to go over my face too many times to get it that close, I'd say I went over my face about 3-4 times before getting it to an acceptable close shave. Not that great, but again, much better than my old one. The flexible heads seemed to help this cause a lot. And just for reference, I'd say my facial hair is average to a bit below average thickness.
A few miscelaneous comments. - The pop up mustache/sideburn trimmer works as expected, nothing exciting. - It can run on both 120V and 240V so no need for an adapter when going overseas. - Quite light weight and on the quiet side - On/off switch is a push button. I personally would have preferred if it was a manual switch that I had to toggle back and forth. Not a big deal. - Does not come with a carrying case!
So overall, not a bad little no-frills razor at all. I just want to reiterate that I haven't tried many others, so take my review with that in mind. Other than that, it does its job reasonably well with a shave that is pretty close, closer than I had expected from a razor of this caliber. It's easy to clean and flexible in terms of the corded/cordless capabilities. And now the final nail in the coffin that made me purchase this... drumroll.. only $30!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 30 Noise Level: More quiet than most
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
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BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED Philips Norelco 7310 Men's Shaving System ****Never Opened*** Never Used*** IMG id=TB_Image alt='View Raw Image ' src="http:/...More at eBay
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