Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean 4100 Electric Rechargeable Toothbrush, Plaque Control, Black

Product Information

The iO uses micro-vibrations and oscillating/rotating movements for an optimal clean. It has seven brushing modes — daily clean, whiten gum care, sensitive, super sensitive, intense, and tongue clean. Price Keep your Phi This article offers answers to the more commonly experienced issues with Sonicare electric toothbrushes. Sonicare offers an Easy-Start mode which increases the power of the brush over the first 14 cleans, easing in a new user. In the box with DiamondClean, you will usually get 1 brush handle, multiple brush heads and some other accessories. WIth Optimal Clean you often get 2 brush handles, multiple brush heads and accessories.

From what I can tell, from use and observation, that the 5100 works at the highest intensity available on the 6100. The gum care cleaning mode could well be different, but I cannot say precisely. Plaque is the very reason we brush our teeth, so the more of it we can disrupt and remove the better. Although all 4 models have 1 cleaning mode, known as clean, the 2100, 3100 and 4100 do offer different brushing intensities though. Philips Sonicare toothbrushes have a more or less traditional brush shape. All of them are elongated and slightly smaller than that of a standard manual brush. There are different models with designs for various functions like gum care or whitening, but every head has a pattern with at least two types of bristles. But complicating things further are the different brush heads and brushing intensities on offer across the range of models.

The 4900 comes with a single W2 Optimal White set of bristles. This is compared to the C2 Optimal Plaque Control of the 4100. The DiamondClean head is perfectly fine. I have no evidence to say 1 is really better than another. As a general rule we suggest the ProResults as it is designed a little more with ‘all round’ cleaning in mind whereas the DiamondClean is geared slightly more to trying to whiten teeth. Efficacy wise there are claims Sonicare make but this is never compared to one of their other brush heads so really understanding how good a brush head is, is difficult. Ultimately, there will be more improvement/efficacy to be gained from mastering the brushing technique and regular brushing for the correct time than any brush head can bring. And if after reading this review, you feel like you want to go in the other direction — an electric toothbrush that brushes effectively but has a minimalist design without all of the frills, you can read our Mode toothbrush review or our Brüush review, or have a look at another oscillating brush in our Goby Toothbrush review. If you want a good Sonicare toothbrush that will get the job done without breaking the bank, we recommend the 4100 Series.

Your toothbrush may come with different modes and settings. Once a mode is selected, the toothbrush works for a specific time period and then turns off automatically.

Clean lasts for 2 minutes, White for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, whilst Gum Care lasts for 3 minutes. and 4000 Series are the broader product range names. Under each of these families might well be a few different models with subtle differences between each. In recent years, Oral-B was the winner here, but since Sonicare have introduced BrushSync, I feel they now have more features available on some of their brush handles. What you might class as a feature may differ, to me.