Oclean X Ultra S Review: The Talking Electric Toothbrush

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Our Verdict

This brush is high quality, elegantly designed and it does everything – and more – you could want an electric toothbrush to do. If not all of the features hit, enough of them do to make this an excellent, if pricey, buy.

Price When Reviewed

$129.99

Best Prices Today: Oclean X Ultra S

If you like a lot of tech in your electric toothbrush, Oclean is a brand to consider. Its electric toothbrushes are crammed with cutting-edge features.

The X Ultra S is no exception. In fact, it may be the first electric toothbrush that talks to you.

Design and Build

• Colour touchscreen
• Lightweight handle
• High-quality brush heads

The X Ultra S is an attractive brush, with a tapered, matt handle and full colour, touchscreen display. It comes in two colour options: back and pale green.

Beneath the screen is a button to power it on and off but you switch between cleaning modes by swiping the screen. When you brush, the screen will display a countdown timer, but the digits are small and it’s not easy to read while you’re brushing, which is not helped by the silvery film over the display.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

When you start brushing, a hideous image of an orange-red set of teeth will appear on the screen. As you brush, the onscreen teeth turn white. The aim is to show areas you miss while cleaning. Via the app, you’ll also get much more detailed brushing feedback.

At the base of the brush handle is a light ring pressure sensor that glows red when you press too hard. Overbrushing is a common problem, and this is one of the features we consider indispensable.

The brush is noticeably light in the hand, weighing just 110g against the Oral-B iO4’s 137g. That’s even more impressive when you consider its features and long battery life: there’s a lot onboard.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

It comes with a light-up USB charging base, a magnetic wall mount for the brush, and three brush heads: ultra gum care, ultra clean and ultra white.

I’m always a little perplexed when oral care brands do this, as most people will have a preference for one type and it would make sense to supply three brush heads of the most popular, universal kind.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

But the brush heads are well made, with a tapered silicone brush head that’s softer on gums and and a mix of silicone and nylon bristles.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

There’s also a USB charging case for travel, with space for the brush handle and two brush heads. It’s black and grey (or green and cream, depending on the brush colour you go for), with a vegan leather finish. It’s considerably higher quality than the hard plastic cases you get with even a high-end Oral-B iO. Nor do iO cases feature a charging port – and the brushes don’t offer USB charging at all.

Emma Rowley / Foundry

Oclean claims that the X Ultra S has a 40-day battery life, but this is likely only if you stick to two 2-minute brushing sessions per day.

If you share the brush, or brush for longer, it’ll be less. I used some of the custom programmes which can be three or even four minutes long. If you do the same, I think that two to three weeks is a more realistic battery life.

Performance, Features and App

• Range of brushing modes
• Customisable brushing
• Voice alerts during brushing

The X Ultra S is quiet in use and it delivers a good brushing performance. But that’s really just the start of what it can do.

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