Oral-B Vitality review

How the Vitality looks, feels and works

There are 2 key parts to the Vitality from Oral-B.

There is the brush handle, that contains the rechargeable battery and motor.  And there is then, of course, the detachable brush head.

The handle and head work together to offer a pretty good clean.

The Vitality range appears more confusing than it actually is. There are 6 different variants. Importantly though, there is just 1 difference between all of these. The difference is the brush head supplied.

If you want to know more information about each brush head style, then do have a read over our Oral-B brush heads guide. The key thing to note is whilst they are all designed to do slightly different things, they all give a good overall clean.

It is nice to see you get 2 included in the box. Quite a bonus at this price.

Whilst you may pick the CrossAction for example, you are not tied to this style for life, you can change.

All the heads can be purchased separately and are interchangeable with the Vitality handle.

Small round heads they all are. The shape makes it very easy to move around the surfaces of the teeth and in particular move around the teeth at the back of the mouth, which are traditionally harder to get to and clean around properly.

All of the brush heads have fading indicator bristles. These are blue bristles on the brush head that dull to a translucent white colour over a 3 month period.

Be sure to replace them approximately every 3 months, sooner if they are showing obvious signs of damage or wear.

The Vitality brush handle itself has a tapered design.

It is thinnest at the bottom and gets wider/thicker to the top of the handle, where the brush head attaches.

The shape moves from a round/cylindrical shape to almost oval by the time you reach the neck of the brush.

It will stand upright on a worktop if you want it to.

On the base of the brush is a recess into which the prong on the charging stand fits.  More on the charging stand in the ‘battery life’ section of the review.

The front of the handle is mainly a smooth touch plastic but is accented by the large blue rubber grip around the power button, the one and only button on the handle.

On the rear of the brush handle, but wrapping around partially onto the front, is a large grip.

The rubber is a turquoise colour and has a series of ridges on it, which the fingers catch on to allow a firm grasp of the brush.

The sizing works well and the extensive grip should mean that for the most part its held securely, even when wet.

Towards the bottom of the brush handle, on the front, is a small Oral-B/Braun logo whilst regulatory icons adorn the same area on the rear of the brush.

Normally, there would be a battery status icon/LED on the front of the handle. So you have no indication of how much power remains in the built-in rechargeable battery.

A small rubber protrusion on the neck of the brush handle at the rear helps the brush stay in one place if laid flat on a worktop.

At the top of the brush handle is a metal shaft that is attached to the motor sealed inside the handle.

The motor inside this handle is satisfactory.

It provides significantly more movements to the brush head than a manual toothbrush to help you achieve a greater standard of clean.

However, do be aware that the motor is a little less powerful than the more premium models you can buy from Oral-B. This will be very obvious to existing electric toothbrush users, and I think even new users of the Vitality might feel it is a bit weak.

Don't get me wrong, more power doesn't necessarily equal better cleaning results. But, it can help. Technique, routine and total brushing time all has a part to play too.

Another factor affecting the clean is the cleaning motion. The Vitality offers a 2D cleaning action (oscillations and rotations), not the 3D cleaning action (oscillations, rotations and pulsations) of more premium models.

You will find the 3D action on the Pro 500 model and above.

For comparison, the Vitality offers 7,600 oscillations compared to the 8,800 oscillations and 20,000 pulsations of the Pro 500.

The Vitality is powered on by a single press on the power button on the front of the handle.

This same button has to be used to turn the brush off. It will not turn itself off at the end of a cleaning cycle.

There is just 1 cleaning mode on the Vitality. There are no differing modes or speeds as is the case on some brush handles.

Compared to a manual brush, these bristles are going to pass over the tooth surfaces a lot more and increase the chances of sweeping away plaque build-up and debris.

It is important to make sure you are using the toothbrush correctly, to gain maximum advantage from the additional brush head movements.

Dentists recommend brushing the teeth twice a day and doing so for 2 minutes each time.

Unfortunately, too many fail to brush for this amount of time, so there is a useful feature built-into the Vitality, a 2 minute timer.

At the time of pressing the power button, you activate the 2 minute timer.

This runs silently in the background until you achieve 2 minutes (120 seconds) of brushing time. At which point, the brush motor will pause briefly 3 times and as such case a change in the brushing sensation and sound.

This is your alert that the 2 minutes has been achieved.

However, what the Vitality from Oral-B lacks that you get on virtually all other Oral-B brushes is the 30 second pacer.

A what? The quadpacer/30 second timer.

At 30 second intervals, the brush motor will pause briefly causing a change in the sound and motion.  It is this that signals you to change from 1 quadrant to another.

It is just like the 2 minute timer, expect it kicks in at 30 seconds intervals.

The principle is you brush the 4 sections of your mouth (upper right, upper left, lower right, lower left) for 30 seconds each so you essentially give and equal clean to all teeth, rather than focusing just on the front ones for example.

It is a bit of an oversight in my opinion that the Vitality does not have this.

Those brushes that have this essentially allow users to level up their brushing routine and standard. The Pro 500 that I suggest does have this.

The brush handle itself is water resistant and is designed to survive everyday use, exposure to water, toothpaste, and saliva.

The handle should not be immersed in water though, so whilst a rinse under the tap is fine, a trip in the bath is not.

The brush comes with a 2 year warranty and will likely continue working longer than this, but you have that peace of mind.