The Denvio Sonic Plus offers a great cleaning experience with a variety of cleaning options and a stylish look, but it’s not perfect. I’ve been using the Sonic Plus every day for the past month, and here’s what I think.
Denvio Sonic Plus: Price and availability
The Denvio Sonic Plus electric toothbrush has an RRP of £109.99, but at the time of writing, you can pick the toothbrush up for half the price (£54.99) from the Denvio website. That puts the Sonic Plus in the mid-range of electric toothbrushes, with more expensive and cheaper options both available in our selection of the best electric toothbrushes. Those in the US are out of luck as the Denvio Sonic Plus isn’t available to buy in the States.
Denvio Sonic Plus: Features & design
The Denvio Sonic Plus is a fashion-focused electric toothbrush that stands out from a sea of ugly alternatives with an ergonomic shape, black or white colour options and rose gold accents, but does that really matter when it comes to a product that nobody else will see? That’s up for you to decide. As the name suggests, the Denvio Sonic Plus opts for sonic cleaning over the traditional rotary tech we’ve seen on the market for years. The sonic vs rotary debate is long-lasting, but generally speaking, sonic-powered electric toothbrushes are more effective when it comes to removing plaque and bacteria from teeth compared to rotary toothbrushes. While I’m not a dentist (surprised, right?) and can’t provide scientific data to back it up, I must admit that my teeth are left feeling smooth and polished when using the Sonic Plus, especially compared to traditional toothbrushes. That probably has something to do with the fact that the Sonic Plus vibrates between 28,000 and 31,000 times per minute depending on the mode you’ve got selected.
There are five cleaning modes to choose from, ranging from powerful to gentle. You’ll find Clean, White, Polish, Soft and Sensitive options and switching between them is as easy as pressing a button. I personally find that the clean, white and polish modes are a little too intense for my sensitive teeth, but both soft and sensitive options offer a gentler experience that still leaves my teeth feeling clean. One issue we’ve found is that the included manual is badly translated in parts. You’ll find sentences like “Whitening mode of 2 minutes to remove surfacestains [sic], plus an additional 30 seconds to brightenand [sic] polish yourfront [sic] teeth” and while we still get the gist of what is being said, the array of grammar and spelling mistakes weaken the premium look of the toothbrush. Thankfully, for the most part, you’ll be able to use the Sonic Plus without having to refer to the manual. You’ll find a built-in timer that’ll briefly stop after a short period of time to let you know it’s time to move on to another section of your teeth. It’s a nice feature that allows you to evenly clean your teeth, but there’s a problem; each segment lasts 20 seconds, and there are four segments in total. This adds up to only 80 seconds when the recommendation from dentists is 2 minutes per brush and, as far as I can tell, there’s no way to adjust this. You can turn it back on and carry on using it, of course, but it’s not ideal.
You get two brush heads in the box, but unlike some competitors that bundle soft and hard heads together, these don’t vary in terms of firmness. The DuPont nylon bristles are quite soft – they were certainly soft enough for my sensitive teeth – and will change colour (from dark blue to light blue) over the course of three months to remind you to change the brush head. The catch? The replacement brush heads are amongst the most expensive in any electric toothbrush we’ve seen at Tech Advisor, costing £17.99 for a pack of two. While you’ll only need to invest every six months or so, it’s a factor to consider when thinking about picking up the Sonic Plus. You’ll find that the battery lasts around four weeks with an average of two brushing sessions per day, which isn’t too bad. When it does need a battery top-up (indicated by a flashing light on the toothbrush itself) you simply slot it into the wireless charging cradle and leave it for around four hours. The problem is that while the toothbrush is IPX7 waterproof, the microUSB-powered wireless charging cradle isn’t, so you’ll need to keep it in another room of the house.
Verdict
With an RRP of £110, we’d expect the Denvio Sonic Pro to feature more smarts – there’s no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi support, no app support and no AI-focused features. Smarts aside, the Sonic Plus is certainly one of the better-looking electric toothbrushes on the market, with an ergonomic shape and rose gold accents, and doesn’t disappoint on the teeth-cleaning front either. It sports five cleaning modes to help remove plaque, polish your teeth and leave your mouth feeling squeaky clean, with a couple of modes dedicated to those of us with sensitive teeth. It’s not perfect though; the timer function doesn’t last a full two minutes, and the fact that the wireless charging dock lacks water resistance and has to be in another room ruins the convenience of wireless charging. The replacement brush heads are also expensive at £17.99 per pack of two. Lewis Painter is a Senior Staff Writer at Tech Advisor. Our resident Apple expert, Lewis covers everything from iPhone to AirPods, plus a range of smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming hardware. You’ll also find him on the Tech Advisor YouTube channel.
