I recently decided to up my game and give the Oral-B Pro 3000 a try after a successful first venture into the world of electric toothbrushes with the Oral-B Pro 1000. I was perfectly happy with the older model, but I’m just one of those people who feel the need to upgrade every once in a while. For anything electronic, it just feels nice to get a newer and better-featured model now and again.
I also decided that I’d be sticking with the same brand. For all that I like upgrading, I don’t much like ‘cross-grading,’ because when I find a manufacturer I trust I like I stick with them.
So, in the box, you get the Oral-B Pro 3000 Handle, Pro White brush head, battery charger and instruction manual. The manual is hard to read as the print is small, but you can get pretty much all the information that you need from the website anyway.
The body itself has a nice slim profile, but I think it could have done with a bit more color. Older models had a strong blue color scheme but this is nowhere near as bold. Not a big issue, but it would have been nice.
It’s easy to push the one included brush head in place, and then you need to let it sit on the charging base. The cable is about a meter long so you should be able to put it anywhere.
Key Features & Technologies
The Oral-B Pro 3000 has 3 brushing modes. There is ‘Daily Clean’, where it hums along at a steady rate. There’s ‘Gum Care,’ which is a slower, massage type of experience designed to stimulate the gums. Then there is ‘Sensitive mode,’ which is the slowest. My teeth can be sensitive from time to time and I have found the flexibility of being able to switch to this gentler mode to be really useful.
One great new feature of the Oral-B Pro 3000 is the Bluetooth link that lets you connect the toothbrush to the Oral-B App. This gives you real-time guidance about your brushing, like which part of the mouth to brush and how long for. It’s not something grown-ups should need, but switched-on kids like my daughter love to play with apps, so I let her use it to cement good brushing habits.
The Pro-White brush head features a ‘polishing cup’ designed to polish teeth and I can say that it does leave my teeth feeling ‘just polished,’ it is called ‘Dentist-Inspired Round Head’, which is how you feel when you come from the dentists and you can’t keep your tongue away from your teeth.
The rotation and pulsation breaks up more plaque to remove surface stains and give you a whiter smile. That’s what they claim, and the brush lives up to it. You can see it and feel it. The pro-White is a small head. This is good for me because I can get it behind the rearmost molars to clean them without feeling like I’m going to gag! A definite plus compared to other heads or even a regular toothbrush head.
I like the visible pressure sensor. This is great because it’s a red light on the back of the handle that you can see in the mirror when you are brushing. When you press too hard the head slows down while the light glows red, so you know to ease off and save your gums. This is a step up from the Oral-B Pro 1000. Its pressure sensor only slowed the brushing speed, so this feels more engaging and is a very useful evolution of the feature.
The Oral-B Pro 3000 has the same handy timer from the previous model that tells you when you’ve been brushing for 2 minutes, which is what dentists recommend. It also divides the mouth into 4 quadrants, top, bottom, left and right and it has a second alarm that tells you to brush a different one every 30 seconds.
How It Works
Officially, 22 hours of charging gives you up to 7 days of brushing if you use it for two minutes twice a day, and in my experience, this is about right. You’ll need to do this when you use it for the first time, but if you can’t wait, then a couple of hours of charging will let you try it for a while. Generally, though, you should judge it daily, ideally overnight, and make sure to let it run down completely flat once every six months. This is just something you have to do with these types of rechargeable batteries to keep them in top shape.
So, the brush head clicks into place easily enough and won’t move. You can replace it with any one of five other heads, but I’ve only used the standard one that came with it, as it seems good enough, plus I like the polishing effect.
Once it’s fully charged, the indicator light will stop winking and switch off (don’t worry about overcharging it as this is not possible.)
You switch it on by pressing the on switch, and that puts it in Daily Clean mode. Press it again for Sensitive mode and once more for Gum Care. I should say here that it’s recommended for you to use the appropriate optional head for each mode, as the brushing effect is enhanced. I haven’t tried this though so I can’t comment.
(A handy tip here, if you ever find you can’t get the brush to change modes, you’ve probably done what I did and used the app to select a program which locks some of them out.)
When you switch it on, the Bluetooth is activated, and if you’ve got that enabled on your phone as well the two will talk to each other and transfer data. If you don’t have your phone with you then don’t worry. The brush will remember data from the last 20 times you used it, and pass all of that information on to the app the next time you fire it up.
For those that are interested this can give you insight into how your clean your teeth and help keep you on track if you’re ever a bit wayward.
Accessories & Packages
The main accessory is the app. I think it’s going to be fun for those that want to keep track of every little detail in their lives. I’m not that way inclined, but my daughter already likes it. It can give you tips, tricks and news, which will probably keep good brushing habits on her mind.
The standard selling pack including:
– 1 Oral-B Pro 3000 Handle
– 1 Charger with Refill Head Storage
– 1 Pro White Brush Head
Pros & Cons
PROS
- Practical function and reliable operation, three brushing modes meet the daily needs of most users, especially for the sensitive brushing mode which recommended by many dentists
- Along with the practical function, Pro 3000 is a medium and reasonable priced products
- The APP in your mobile device could storage your brushing data from the last 20 cleans, easy for tracking
CONS
- I will be more considerable if the selling pack could offer one more brush head for replacement
- No indication of remaining power until it’s nearly drained
Conclusion
I give it 8.2/10. It’s a step up from my old Oral-B Pro-1000, and it feels like money well spent. The different modes are welcome and useful features that leave my teeth smooth and clean and the Bluetooth functionality is bound to appeal to some people.