Oral B Pro 2500 review: Affordable electric brushing

Oral-B electric toothbrushes vary in price from a bargain basement £8 right up to and over the £100 mark. We’ve tested two of Oral-B’s pricier electric toothbrushes, but the Pro 2500 costs around £34 and differentiates itself from cheaper models with its integrated rechargeable battery (rather than standard replaceable AA batteries) and it also comes with a neat little travel case.

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Design and features

The travel case isn’t as snazzy as some of the premium designs bundled with other brushes but it holds the handle and two brush heads securely and has some ventilation holes to allow the head to dry out between brushes.

At this price it’s not much of a surprise to find that only one brush head is included. It’s Oral-B’s standard CrossAction design, but the brush handle accepts any others in the Oral-B range. I particularly like the FlossAction brush head with its little plastic paddles that get down between teeth. Replacement heads cost around £2 to £3, depending on the design and whether you buy in bulk. I’m not so keen on the hole halfway along Oral-B brush heads, though – while it presumably serves an important practical function, it also tends to attract a buildup of dried toothpaste.

The brush heads use a rotating motion and their round design is perfect for encircling teeth. Rotations are at 75Hz, which isn’t as fast as the Philips Sonicare system’s 250Hz but the amount of motion is larger. We can’t comment on which is better in terms of long-term dental health, but both give a really thorough clean. One advantage of this toothbrush over Philips models is its pressure sensor, which shows a red warning light when there’s too much pressure that could damage gums. The brush also stops momentarily every 30 seconds to encourage you to brush the four corners of your mouth for 30 seconds each, and does a series of short stops to signal when two minutes are up.

There’s a low battery indicator, which flashed at the end of the 20th brush, and the battery ran out on the 21st. This battery life test was conducted in a single day — you can expect fewer brushes per charge in normal use as the battery will deplete slightly over time. The box promises up to 14 cycles per charge, which seems reasonable. However, charging using the induction-based two-pin charger took 18 hours, so the chances are you’ll want to use it again before it’s fully charged.

That’s not just inconvenient, though: the Ni-MH battery type used here is known to suffer from an issue called memory effect, whereby it gradually holds less charge if it’s charged up when there’s still some charge left. I haven’t been testing the Pro 2500 for long enough to witness this problem, but my experience with other Oral-B electric toothbrushes with Ni-MH batteries is that battery life reduces dramatically after a year or so of use.

Verdict

If you’re looking for a great quality electric toothbrush on the cheap, then the Oral-B Pro 2500 is a solid choice. The battery issue is unfortunate, and may end up counting against it in the long run, but otherwise this is a decent electric toothbrush at a great price.