The Blade Runner-Overer

Author's Rating:

Pros: Fast, close, very little irritation, solid construction, cleaning is outstanding.

Cons: Big. Might require a case for travel. Cleaning cartridges could get expensive.

The Bottom Line: 
Top of the line Braun is worth the dough. Great cleaning system yields excellent results and a fresh shave every morning.

Author's Review
  The last time I owned an electric shaver George Bush was President. And I am talking about old man Bush, too, not Junior. That old shaver was a Panansonic wet/dry number with the uncanny ability to always miss one big hair. It seemed that no matter how carefully I would shave with the thing, it would always leave one maddening hair unshorn, sticking up by itself waiting for my wandering fingers to find in some mid-morning meeting and drive me crazy for the rest of the day.

So it was in that innocent decade of the 90s that I switched over to shaving with a blade and gave no more thought to an electric razor. I used the Gillette Mach 3 for the most part, dallied with the Schick Quattro, finally gravitating to the Gillette Fusion system for the past few years. Overall, I was happy with the performance of all of the manual razors, particularly the Fusion, which is outstanding when outfitted with a brand new blade cartridge. Of course, it ought to be outstanding. If you pay list for your cartridges they cost $4 apiece. Outlandish. But they do set the standard for a close shave and are nearly impossible to cut yourself with.

Unless you are me.

For some reason, probably having more to do with my own impatience and clumsiness than with any aspect of the Fusion design, I have sliced up various patches of my face recently. And since I take anti-coagulants, shaving nicks can end up looking like the OJ Simpson crime scene. I got a little fast and footloose with the razor under my nose recently and took a slice out of my lip that took a week to heal. It got me wondering, as I stood before the mirror trying to figure out how to get a tourniquet around my lip, "Why do I keep this nonsense up?"

Since my retirement, I no longer have to shave on a timeline to get to work. All I have to do is keep the whiskers knocked down well enough so that people don't mistake me for some bum or hipster. Well, if that's all I really need, why not screw the four-buck-chuck cartridges and get myself an electric again?

But what kind? Norelco, Remingon, another Panasonic? Or should I go looking for something really esoteric? Well, the one name I keep running into when it comes to electrics is Braun. My Brother Kip has lived in Germany for over 30 years and he's always used one, and my Brother-in-law Terry has nothing but good to say about his Braun shaver. PLUS, I happen to be one of the few, lucky individuals to own one of these, quite possibly the best food processor ever invented. So, my thinking was that it would probably be a good idea to take a look at Braun shavers, too.

But which model? Why, the top of the line, of course. There is no point fooling around buying the middle line model of something you need as badly and use as often as a shaver. What is the hundred bucks you may save going to buy you that is so all-fired important when you consider that you will be shaving your face with the thing for years, quite possibly? A few more hands of blackjack? One dinner out on the town? Naw, for something as necessary as a razor, there is only one place to look: top o' the line.

So, what is the top of the line when it comes to Braun Shavers? Well, the current lineup lists the 7 series -- uncoincidentally reminiscent of BMW nomenclature, I think - and the 790cc as the flagship. So that is what I settled on. But I did take a look at the prices and saw a huge amount of variance. Some of the things were going upwards of $300 online. The cheapest I found a new one for sale at any online retailer was $219(at that time) from Amazon. While that price was within the realm of reason, I thought I would hunt around a little bit and see if I could find one cheaper. I hit the jackpot when I ran across a guy in Texas who had gotten one as a gift and didn't want it. He sold it to me, unopened, for $150 and tossed in a package of 3 cleaning cassettes with the deal.

The 790cc is differentiated from its slightly less expensive brother the 760cc, by the addition of a small round unlit LCD screen on the bottom of the handle that notifies the user of both the battery charge level and the "hygiene" level! That's right, the hygiene level! Can you believe it? The shaver has a sensor that tells whether it has a stockpile of old whiskers floating around inside. This information is valuable to the user when deciding whether to clean the shaver or not. And by clean, I do not mean take it apart like you would a gun and clean it, I mean what you do is shove the head of the shaver down into the charger cradle, er, excuse me, the "Clean and Renew Station" and the machine flushes out the shaver with an alcohol/lubricant mixture that cleans, disinfects, and makes the shaver fresh as a daisy for the next day's shaving chores. This liquid is pumped out of individual cleaning cartridges you buy from Braun. Each has about a month's worth of cleaning cycles available, then you toss it and replace it with a new one. Braun recommends running the cleaning cycle every day, and that is precisely what I do unless I am on the road. When traveling, you will have to put the head under the faucet to clean it out (perfectly kosher, the shaver is designed to be rinsed out under running water) as the charger/cleaner is too big to fit into any shaving kit known to man and the cartridges cannot be taken on an airliner due to flammability restrictions.

The razor comes with one cleaning cartridge as well as the cleaner/charging station so you will have all you need to get going right out of the box. The supplied power cord can either be plugged into the charger/cleaner or directly into the shaver if necessary. This is a nice touch for those times when you need to shave right away but don't have time for the batteries to charge. Not that that would be too much of a deal with this razor. It uses Li-Ion batteries and it charges quickly without ever having to worry about Nickel Hydride battery "memory" failures.

I didn't shave for a couple of days before the shaver arrived just so I could give it a good workout. The batteries were not charged so I plugged it in with the power cord and went to town on my beard. Fast. The thing is really fast. You do not have to go over and over a patch of whiskers to get them shaved. A couple of passes will knock down most of your whiskerly opposition and a little patrolling of the area will pick up the stragglers.

One thing I really remember about running an electric shaver in years past was the heat and irritation that would build up on my face from using one. My old Remington used to get hot enough to nearly steam the whiskers out of my cheeks. And it was inevitable that any time I switched back to an electric I was going to be in for a week of irritation before my face got used to the "new way". Not this time. The Braun, while it does heat up a little, is not nearly as irritating to use as the electrics of my memory. Perhaps it is the cleaning cycle I run after each use that includes a dose of lubrication for the foil and blade cassette. Whatever, the result is less irritation than I expected.

The head of the shaver is designed to pivot as it slides over the surface of your face and it does this quite well and smoothly. There is a button on the side of the head that can be used to lock the head into one position but so far its utility escapes me. The big selling point of the device is the "Pulsonic" action of the shaver. What this means, it turns out, is that the head of the shaver vibrates when you use it. Hmm. Last time I checked, every electric razor on the planet vibrates when used. So I am not so sure about that particular selling point. But it does shave, and closely, too.

But is it as close as the Gillette Fusion? No. It is not. If you are switching from shaving with a modern blade system, you have to get used to the idea that there will be a microscopic remnant of whiskers left on your face, a slight brushiness that you will be able to feel if you really stretch your skin. I remember that I used to be able to minimize this by using "Lectric Shave," perhaps that is something I will try eventually.

As far as construction, I am pretty happy with the shaver. It does have a mostly plastic case, expected in this modern age, but it is made in Germany and the construction is nicely executed. The on/off button is recessed preventing you from accidentally shutting it off mid-shave. And the entire cutter/foil assembly comes off easily if you need to replace it. Braun recommends replacement of the foil and cutter block every 18 months. You can find them on the Internet for around $40 or so.

The 7 series also features a pop-out sideburn trimmer, but I seldom let my hair get shaggy enough to worry about needing one of those.

One thing I am very happy about is this cleaning capability. It is very simple. When you put the shaver back in the cradle after use, the base unit evaluates the amount of cleaning required. So far, each shave of my relatively lightly whiskered chin only requires an "eco" clean. Apparently, if you have a Nixon beard or wait a month to clean the thing, the light will change to "intensive" and the thing will take a really long bath. And as for that bath, what is happening is that fluid from the cleaner cartridge is pumped up and through the shaver and back down into the cartridge again. The razor turns off and on periodically during the cycle. When it is all done and the shaver is dry, all the lights go off except for the power light.

For me, it is very convenient. When I get done shaving, I plop the shaver into the charger and hit the clean button. The next day I know the shaver is clean and ready to go and there is no need to worry about funky germies living in my shaver.


I guess about the only negative thing I could think of about the shaver is that it is pretty large. You could shave a moose's lip with the thing. It's a bit big for even my gi-normous travel kit, so that I will probably have to find some place else to stash it when I travel. The shaver comes shipped in a hard nylon case, maybe I will use that for traveling, or maybe I will just find a new case for it altogether. But that is my only beef with the thing outside of the high cost. But really, the cost is not that bad for the performance you get, and considering the fact that I got a steal on mine on ebay there is simply no reason for me to complain.

So the only unanswered questions for me pertain to reliability. Will the system hold up to daily use? Can I answer that one now? Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. But I promise to come back and rerate if I run into any problems down the roady-road road!