Spotlight Oral Care sonic
- Modes: Three
- Battery type: Li-ion
- Accessories included: Protective travel case
- Battery life: Two months
- Returns: 28 days, if unopened
- Travel case: Included
- App connectivity: None
The brush offers an uncomplicated and uncluttered design, with a single, large power button, so it’s easy to find and turn the product off mid-routine (if you need to) without pebble-dashing the bathroom mirror with toothpaste.
The power button also enables you to cycle through the modes, with whatever intensity you settle on being the one that the brush remembers the next time you fire it up. The fact it’s not app-enabled and isn’t packed with gizmos, such as accelerometers, means it feels light in hand and is easy to move around the mouth quadrants without feeling too intrusive.
Spotlight Oral Care sonic toothbrush cleaning and whiteningThis is a powerful toothbrush, compared with some of the other sonics out there. The sensitive mode delivers 31,000 repetitions per minute, while ‘clean’ is 41,000rpm and ‘white’ turns the intensity up to 48,000rpm. This compares with the Suri brush, which delivers 33,000rpm, and the Ordo + which maxes out at 40,000rpm.
We found, whether you have a whitening goal or not, white mode gives a satisfactory and thorough clean, without feeling overly harsh on gums. However, if you do have sensitive gums, it might be a bit too much, combined with the fact the brush doesn’t come with any kind of pressure indicator.
Read more: Does the Spotlight Oral Care teeth whitening system actually work? We find out
Sonic brushes tend to produce a higher-pitched noise than their oscillating rivals, but this brush is particularly noisy on white mode, which might be something to take into consideration if you’re often in the bathroom early, while everyone else is sleeping.
The calibration of the oval-shaped brush head with the motor really makes the most of the bristle pattern, so it was clearly going to be able to break apart the biofilm that can lead to cavities, while delivering a deep clean without damaging teeth and gums. The brush also has a quadrant timer, to ensure you give your mouth complete coverage.
Read more: Philips Sonicare 5100 toothbrush review
However, it was its quality as a whitening tool, over time, that really impressed, and we noticed a significant reduction in the amount of staining to the teeth and, in the end, we only used white mode in the morning, combining it with the clean mode before bed, which still delivers a powerful clean.
Spotlight Oral Care sonic toothbrush battery lifeThe battery light on the handle will flash when the product needs charging, but you won’t need to worry about this very often because the Spotlight brush’s ability to hold charge is impressive. After 14 hours on charge, we didn’t have to revisit the charger for over two months (brushing twice daily), which is particularly useful if you’re going away and don’t want to bother taking the charger too.
The only slight drawback here is that you will have to charge the brush somewhere other than the bathroom, as its dock comes with a three-pin plug attached, rather than one that will fit the standard shaver socket
Spotlight Oral Care sonic toothbrush value for moneyOverall, the brush has a very robust feel and we would expect it to be able to withstand multiple sink drops and journeys rattling around in an overnight bag. It comes with a travel case and three replacement heads as standard, so represents excellent value.
Each head should last three months and this was borne out during testing, as the bristles began to lose rigidity and effectiveness during the third month of use. A set of three replacement heads costs £29.