The manual says to use this product exclusively for 21 days to give your face time to adapt to the shaving system. For users like me, this is an unforgivably long grace period. A well-engineered razor should adapt to your face. Your face should not have to adapt to the razor. I was disappointed from the very first shave and after a few more shaving attempts, abandoned it to go back to disposables. With every single shave, I had to clean up strays with a disposable, especially around the neck and under the chin. But in order to write a fair review, I started using it again 2 wks ago and decided to complete the 21 day trial.
After these 2 new weeks, I continue to be disappointed. This razor under-performs compared to other electrics I've used in the past. I'm not a hairy guy but my facial hair does grow back fast, requiring a quick shave every 2 days. If my facial hair grew just slightly longer (3-4 days), the "lift and cut" system becomes an irritating "yank and cut" system. The motor is either not fast enough or not powerful enough to keep pace as I roll the razor across my face. This was never a problem with past electrics I've owned, like the Remington Microscreen product line. Norelco's triple head design here add nothing to the functionality, and in fact, detract from the shaving performance in a major way.
The "Patented Reflex Action System" which was supposed to adjust "automatically to every curve on your face and neck for an uncommonly smooth shave" did not adjust to mine at all. Shaving with this takes me a lot longer and requires more effort than with a manual razor or my old Remington. The entire reason is the small active surface area of the heads. The actual cutting zone is a very small target consisting of only the outer ring of each circular head, which hair must poke itself through. As you pass the razor over your face, the hair must hit one of these small sweet-spots to get lifted and cut away. Every other part of the razor's face besides the rings is simply a dead-weight non-cutting surface, resulting in a lot of missed hairs whether using straight strokes or circular motions. The Remingtons, by contrast, offer a wide horizontal head with a lot of active surface area and requires much fewer strokes across the face.
The few design aspects I did like:
- elastic bungee cord plug minimizes entanglement and accidents
- flip-out sideburns trimmer works, though also small surface area
- rubberized non-slip grip
I will continue the experiment for 1 more wk, as the manual instructs and update as needed. I am not impressed so far.
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