Philips Norelco 7865XL Quadra Action Rechargeable Cord/Cordless Shaving System
|
List Price: Category: Health Care See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Product Reviews of Philips Norelco 7865XL Quadra Action Rechargeable Cord/Cordless Shaving System
Product Review: good shave; don't like the power switch
Summary: 4 Stars
The 7825XL, 7845XL, 7865XL and 7885XL models are all basically the same razor, differing only in the way they display battery/charging status (anywhere from 1 LED to a complete tiny LCD display). The shaving peformance is fine for me -- not as close as a wet shave but that's a good thing for me personally because the closeness of wet shaves makes my face break out. Every 3-7 years I buy a new Norelco and they get incrementally better each time.
I'm writing to warn about one feature. Every shaver I'd had up to this one had a physical slider switch to turn it on and off. This models has a push button. This means you can't tell BY TOUCH whether it's on or off. This is critical for me because I usually shave in the car (sitting in traffic) with the stereo blaring and I can't hear the shaver (especially since the newer models are pretty quiet). I turn it on and off a lot as traffic conditions change.
Further, when the battery is low, my previous shavers would just run slower and slower until they came to a gradual stop. This one slows slightly (imperceptably to me, really) and then just "falls off the cliff" and stops cold. So you don't get any warning really that it's about to run out -- if I knew it was running down, then I'd shave a lot faster!
And this is where the tactile power switch feedback is important: if the battery's totally drained, but I'm not done yet, I'll leave it off for a minute and then turn it on for 5-10 seconds of shaving before it dies again. With the push-button power control this is really confusing because you're never really sure what's on and off. It turns out the the power button is like a pulse that gets sent to an internal microcontroller (I'm guessing), so after it's been off for a while the power "position" doesn't matter, it's really off. You just push to reboot the thing.
So, my 7825XL was robbed out of my car last night and I'm buying another one of these, so I guess that's an endorsement. But I'm bumping up to the next higher model with better battery status indication ...