Dentist Fresh Clean

OMGosh this is the absolute best toothbrush I have ever used! I love the feeling it leaves me with....it's just like I left the dentist's office every time I use it!

Best Toothbrush Ever

Love this brush. Lasts for a long time and really does a great job of cleaning teeth. When I travel and bring other brushes my teeth never feeling as clean. Been using it for twenty years and only replaced this once. It is great that you can buy the replacement brushes in many retailers

Best clean

I would never go back to A manual brush again you can sure tell the difference! I actually remember to brush twice a day because I enjoy doing it and it feels so great it feels like after you go to the dentist! I can tell tell the difference

Great option for new Sonic users

I'm sure there a lot of people out there trying to decide if they need/want to splurge for the higher end 'DiamondClean' Sonicare brushes or if one of the more basic, frugal models like this are right for them. As a current user of a DiamondClean toothbrush, my review here will focus on when this 4100 ProtectiveClean might be a better option for you.

Simply put, if you are looking to upgrade to a first time sonic toothbrush, don't want to break the bank or simply can't be bothered with all the smart features, this one will work great for you. It also works great for those with smaller mouths and close set teeth. Note that it only comes with 1 head and a charger.

Read below to hear more about what I thought.

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Design
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Compared to the DiamondClean, this one is understandably a little more bare bones when it comes to look. However, if you prefer a more traditional looking toothbrush that's a little less flashy, this is it! Strangely, I actually found this to be more comfortable in my hand than my more advanced diamond clean. If you have bigger hands, this might feel a little small for you, but it's also a lot lighter and better for those who want a smaller brush.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the button is not only a lot easier to press on this, but has less of a tendency to 'gunk up' in the crevices around it, meaning it's much easier to keep clean.

The biggest thing for me here was the brush-head size. The brush-head on this is a lot smaller than the ones that came with my DiamondClean and at first I didn't think I'd like that, but I'm happily proven wrong. This gets all the way in behind my back teeth. I have very close-set teeth, so I really think this was a big improvement for me, though you can probably buy bigger and smaller heads for both brushes.

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Features
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As expected, as one of the cheaper toothbrushes in the Sonicare line, the features on this are a lot more limited. For example, there's no app support and connect. However, don't write it off, because if you find you don't really care for all that fiddly 'technology' and just want a standard toothbrush, this might very well be perfect for you. It still has a lot of great features, just implemented in a less 'smart tech' kind of way.

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Pressure sensor - This has a very noted difference to the 'vibration' that will alert you when you're leaning too hard. Brushing with a sonic toothbrush is slightly different from an electric (watch a video to ensure you do it right) and this feature really trains you into using it right. It takes a little getting used to, but within a few days you'll find yourself auto-adjusting your pressure when it alerts you. I did find myself missing the 'light' feature of the DiamondClean which has a physical feedback and a visual colour change when your pressure is too heavy, but I'm glad they included a version of the pressure feature on this brush.

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BrushSync Replacement Reminder - Rather than telling you through an app, the brush itself has an icon and light to tell you when it needs changed. Good little feature.

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Smartimer and Quadpacer - The brush has 2 timers, first is a 'smartimer' which will automatically turn the brush off after 2 minutes brushing. This is a simple, effective and very welcome feature as you can be sure you're brushing your teeth long enough. If the brush is still going, keep brushing!

The Quadpacer, for me is a little bit less of a success. It has a slightly different 'buzz' at the time in which you should be done with a quarter of your mouth (Sonicare recommends brushing in quarter segments), but I found the buzz was not strong or different enough for me to really notice it. I struggled quite a lot to detect it, even when trying to pay attention. It's not a deal-breaker, but for me, this feature was probably the weakest.

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Speed - Here's where it gets a little confusing, the Philips website lists this as having up to 62000 brush movement/min. This is on par with the DiamondClean. However, the box of the products, states it is 31,000 per minute, which is only half of that. I'm more liable to trust the box, so if that's accurate you get around half the cleaning power of this compared to the higher-end model. It's still a big improvement over a non-sonic toothbrush, so whether or not you want to splurge for more cleaning power is really up to you.

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Battery Life
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Battery time on this model, between charges, is 2 weeks. Compared to the DiamondClean's 3 weeks, that's still plenty and definitely more than I expected.
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Overall, most of what's missing on this model, compared to the higher end model's is arguably, stuff you could live without. If you already have a higher-end Sonicare, you might find this is a bit of a downgrade, most noticeably on cleaning power. However, if you're looking to get into the sonic toothbrush habit, this is a great beginner one that lacks the bells and whistles of the high-priced models, but still has plenty to be getting on with. More importantly, it does a great job keeping teeth clean.