Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 Toothbrush Review
The Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 is an electric toothbrush designed to take away the mundaneness of brushing, offering style and some new ideas. But, most importantly, does it elevate your oral hygiene routine with its variety of advanced features?
Design & Comfort
A premium build of soft plastics, with no uncomfortable joints or moulds, has meant the Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 is pleasurable to hold with a slimline grip that is ergonomically designed. The two buttons, one for power and the other for toggling between modes, are in easy placement to be used one handed. An orange light at the bottom emits when it's time to change the brush head and there’s a few white LED icons on the brush; the written ones show which mode is activated, three power levels and battery level. Helpfully, a battery alert notifies you with a sound before it runs out of charge, so you're never left unprepared; which is great, as it’s so easy to ignore the symbols.
Charging & Battery Life
The Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400’s sleek and stylish charging system sets it apart. It comes with a charging glass that doubles as a holder and uses induction technology to charge the toothbrush seamlessly; it doesn't care how or where you place the base of the brush in the glass - it just works! This design not only looks great on your bathroom counter with its soothing LED light glowing as it charges, but it's also very stable, unlike Oral-B bases, and replaces your rinsing glass. For travel the USB charging travel case is incredibly convenient, allowing you to keep your toothbrush charged when packed away. With a battery life that lasts up to two weeks within the brush anyway (brushing 2 minutes daily), it’s difficult to imagine running out of battery, if you leave with a full charge, for most trips, but it’s a nice case to keep it in nonetheless. It has a pleasing mechanism, and this case is perfect for frequent travellers, outdoing the best of the Oral-B iO series travel cases.
Performance
One of the standout features of the Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 is its quiet operation. Unlike many electric toothbrushes that we get sent, this isn’t loud or jarring. This model provides a smoother, quieter brushing experience, allowing for a more peaceful routine at around 60 decibels. A nice combination of quiet performance and comfort helps ensure that brushing feels less like a chore and more like a simple, regular occurrence.
Rather than the usual two-minute brushing session broken into four 30-second intervals, the DiamondClean takes a different approach by breaking it into six 20-second intervals. This encourages you to move the brush more often while brushing, but is difficult at first to get to grips with. The companion app can be used to coach you in this cleaning style, but other than this the app has remained unopened as it is really a portal to track how well you’re brushing on a daily basis, so it can help improve your technique.
Offering four distinct cleaning modes and three levels of power, this toothbrush lets you tailor your brushing experience based on your preferences or specific needs. Whether you’re looking for a deep clean or a gentle touch, there's a broad scope performance that really will suit different mouths. On a day to day basis it’s been the flagship clean mode that has been utilised along with the Philips' G3 brush head. These sonic toothbrush heads, of course, pulsate back and forth, and evaluating cleaning performance tested over three months, we have nothing negative to say. This style of head is comfortable and firm enough to contour in and around teeth and to position into the furthest away molars. It’s not abrasive on gums and we find it quite easy to apply equal pressure whilst brushing, with alerts that brushing is too hard being rather rare. It’s definitely a cleaning performance that compares with what we have experienced from the Oral-B iO Series 9. However, that uses a rounded brush head and some at the studio prefer this style over the rectangular. So obviously this is down to personal preference.
We’re fond of the Oral-B iO series, but the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 is a serious rival and importantly cheaper than the the top iO series 9 and 10 models at £399 RRP, but can be had for closer to £200 at many retailers. Replacement heads are expensive for both brands, but massive savings can be made by purchasing them on Amazon, where they’re frequently as much as 50% less expensive.
Brush Heads Explained
We like the BrushSync technology. The built-in BrushSync technology monitors brush head usage and lets you know exactly when it’s time to replace the head. This interesting innovation requires a chip and it makes these heads more expensive. Nevertheless the feature is really handy and means, even if you neglect to use the app to log when you replaced the head or set a reminder, it doesn’t matter as the toothbrush knows anyway. A feature Oral-B don’t have in their most premium models.
The ProResults brush head line is the older, more compact brush head model that was once the default choice. It doesn’t have a chip and is priced lower than the newer designs. There’s whitening option (W2 or W3), a plaque-fighting option (C2 or C3), our all-rounder option A3, and a gum care version (G2 or G3) which is also meant for sensitive use.
Verdict
With its superb glass stylish charging base, 14 day battery life, quiet yet powerful performance, app coaching if you need it, alerts if you're pressing too hard, BrushSync tech that monitors and informs when the brush head needs to be replaced, the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 Electric Toothbrush combines a nice combination of the tried and tested with some new ideas, making it a top choice for those looking for a comfortable brushing experience, with a good variety of brush head types to choose from, cultivating long-term oral health benefits.
