If you want to maintain your facial hair or prefer a stylish stubble look, you’ll need the right beard trimmer for the job. The same goes if you’re after a close shave – if you use the wrong electric razor to cut your hair or shave your head, you’ll risk nasty nicks, painful cuts and irritating razor burn.
With our grooming guide, we’ll help you pick the best electric razor for your needs. And even though the TechRadar team hasn’t tested every item on this “Best of” list yet, we’ve sacrificed our whiskers to a few of the products below.
With that in mind, we’ve analyzed the top-rated and most popular options today, and picked a selection of electric razors and beard trimmers that will fit your needs based on these criteria: price, number of blades, attachments, waterproofing, shaving gel options, portability, wired or cordless, ease of cleaning, performance and even smart features.
Whether you want to rid yourself of the old soup-strainer or maintain your beard’s fuzziness all year-round, we’ve rounded up the best electric razors and beard trimmers available today.
We haven’t had all of these products in our test labs, but based on our expert opinion and knowledge of the most reputable brands around, we think these are well worth looking at.
Our selections factor in online reviews, brand reputation, product capability and unique features to help you choose the right razor for you.
If the idea of a close shave makes your facial skin crawl, then the BaByliss Men Super Stubble might be for you. It’s the perfect tool to sculpt your beard to a variety of different lengths, and makes maintaining designer stubble in particular a breeze. You can choose between 0.4mm to 5mm, and use the trimmer whether your beard is wet or dry as it’s 100% waterproof.
The skin-friendly comb and flexible contouring head lets the beard trimmer glide across your fuzzy visage with ease, and we’ve personally never been nicked by the blades. You don’t need to worry about being caught out mid-shave, either, as the battery lasts up to 70 minutes and has a quick-charge function to provide enough power for one shave. There’s also a large LED on the trimmer so you can see exactly how long’s left until you run out of charge.
If you have particularly sensitive skin and need a shaver that’s effective while still being gentle, Philips should be your brand of choice. The 6000 series of Philips Norelco shavers comes with 72 mini SkinProtect blades designed to capture hair without scraping your skin. The blades are placed in three ComfortGlide rings that can flex in different directions to make tricky neck angles easier. You can even run it at a lower speed to prevent irritation.
We like that it lets you shave with shaving gel for even more comfort, but we wish this pricey model was fully waterproof to make cleaning (and manscaping) easier. We also wish it had a slightly longer battery life between charges, but despite those drawbacks, we love the 5-minute quick charge feature and the LED indicator that shows if you’re out of juice, if it needs a clean, or if you should replace the head.
It doesn’t bear to think about how dirty electric razors can get: clogged with hair, dead skin and unseen germs – they can be pretty hard to clean. But the S9000 Prestige line of Philips Norelco shavers has a waterproof core, meaning you can scrub it clean anytime. Some models even come with an automatic cleaning station that cleans and dries the S9000 Prestige, while lubricating the ‘NanoTech’ blades to keep them suitably sharp.
If you’re willing to pay more than double the price of the 6000 series, the S9000 Prestige series gives you pretty much every feature you could want in a rotary-style electric razor. Its head rotates in eight directions and it includes a sensor that detects your beard length, and adjusts the blades accordingly. Additionally, the razor features a handy digital display that shows the time remaining, three shaving speeds – including a “Fast” mode – and an anti-friction coating on the rings to protect your skin even further.
If you shave daily, you might prefer a more straightforward, multi-blade electric razor models as opposed to a rotary blade model. Although these shavers offer less skin protection, you do generally get a closer shave. Powerful and efficient, the Panasonic Arc5 consistently rates as one of the most popular and best electric razors around. It has a 14,000 cuts-per-minute (cpm) linear motor powering its five blades – while most razors offer four or less.
Like the Philips Prestige, it has a waterproof frame, a sensor to detect beard length, a digital LCD battery display, and a pivoting head. Unlike the Prestige, though, it’s only good for 45 minutes of battery life, but it beats it on price and its ability to pivot in 16 directions. If you trust your neck to handle just how effective the Arc5 is, it’s an easy electric razor for us to recommend.
This electric razor offers 10,000 cpm using its fancy four blade setup, and its eight-directional head can cut your hair as short as 0.05mm. The Braun Series 7 shows the benefits of this type of electric razor with its middle foil blade, which lifts up flat-lying hairs so that the other blades can clip them away. It also supposedly uses ‘smart tech’ to increase power when you’re shaving those coarser areas, but we’d need to test that ourselves. We do appreciate that you can lock the head in one direction so it doesn’t shift while you’re shaving at a tricky angle, however.
The rest of its specs match its competitors: a high price when it’s not on sale, a waterproof body and 50 minutes of shaving time. It lacks the big battery display of some other razors, but it has five different speed settings from ‘turbo’ to ‘sensitive’, making it a good choice regardless of how you feel when it comes to comfort versus power.
Braun considers this model to be one of its best electric razors, touting its titanium coating for extra-sharp shaving, 10-directional head and ergonomic handle. Interestingly, the differences between the Series 7 and 9 are smaller than you might expect. Both hit 10,000 cpm, the battery life is the same, and it also uses four blades. The Braun Series 9 actually drops the 7’s speed settings, however, it does offer a second middle foil for lifting those pesky flattened hairs, and will offer you a better shave over a shorter time span. But honestly, you’ll have to decide whether these differences are worth the extra $100 price point.
Many of the premium shavers above range from between $100 and $300. Even when they’re on sale, they still might be outside of your budget. The Remington F5-5800 foil shaver gives you the standard features you need: a cordless shaver with a rotating, washable head (though the body isn’t waterproof); a middle ‘intercept’ blade for catching small hairs; 60 minutes of battery life with an LED display, and a detail trimmer for styling. You won’t find a massive cpm and it isn’t particularly gentle on the jaw, but it’s popular for its price because it gets the job done.
Whether you’re bald by choice or choose to shave your head, you deserve an electric razor that’s designed to leave your head smooth and free of nicks. The Remington HC4250 Shortcut Pro is a great option because of its circular rubber grip and extra-wide curved blade, both designed to easily shave your head at any angle.
It also comes with nine different-length combs so you can turn it into a beard trimmer, which gives it some added versatility. It might be a stretch too far to use it as an electric razor on your face, though, so you may need a backup. Also, while you can use it either wired or cordless, the measly 40 minute battery life means you may want to keep it plugged in. It is waterproof, though, making it easy to clean after you’ve shaved.
Philips offers an impressively versatile package with its Multigroom 7000, which comes with no less than 23 accessories. Along with the standard metal trimmer, you get a foil shaver, detail trimmer, a nose and ear trimmer, and 14 different trimming guards for hair, beard, stubble, body and eyebrows. If that wasn’t enough, it also comes with a storage container and cleaning brush. Whatever you need, you can guarantee it comes with the Multigroom 7000.
More importantly, whichever setting you use, you get five hours of battery life, which is leaps and bounds above the competition. Its stainless steel DualCut blades get great reviews from consumers for its powerful finish, regardless of your chosen facial hair length. It’s arguably one of the best beard trimmers on the market today.
If you asked your barber what shaver they use to give your hair such satisfyingly sharp angles, odds are they’ll tell you they use an Andis. Despite being a pro trimmer, it comes at a supremely affordable price for its effectiveness, compared to the more premium models.
There are admittedly some negatives to consider. It’s corded, fairly large in the hand, and it reportedly runs quite hot. You also need to oil the blades to keep them clean – pro-quality shaves and fades require proper maintenance. But the various beard trimmer attachments will keep your facial fuzz at the length you like, and even though its 7,200 cpm doesn’t match the other top beard trimmers, that number should be more than enough for most.
With this trimmer, you get the best lithium battery available today. It lasts for a reported six hours, which should potentially give you weeks of quick trims before you need to recharge. If you do need to top up the battery in a hurry, you can plug it in for just three minutes and get plenty of juice. Plug it in when you leave for work, and the green charging tech will cut off the charge when the battery is full, so you won’t impact the life of the lithium battery over time.
We’re focusing on the battery here because even though Wahl says the motor and performance has improved for this model, we don’t have much information on cpm or anything else. Reviewers say this model is nice and compact for travel, especially since you don’t need to bring the charger with you. Do keep in mind it should only be used for dry shaving, however, and it doesn’t have a battery display.
While most shavers rely on multiple cross-cutting blades to catch tiny stubble, the OneBlade attaches one blade (surprise!) to a versatile handle so it can effectively trim any length of hair. It won’t shave as closely as some of the best electric razors above, but for those who like to shave every week or two, it’ll get you trim and tidy in a matter of minutes without being too rough on your skin.
The Face & Body model comes with a second blade for those that like to keep the rest of their body hair suitably neat. Whichever model you pick, you’ll need to swap out the blade every four months to keep it sharp, a faster turnaround than most other trimmers. Nevertheless, the OneBlade will transform your mornings by making shaving that much more convenient, but it isn’t as comprehensive as other beard trimmers that we’ve listed
Maintaining a beard may be less time-consuming than everyday shaving but it also makes much more of a mess. Wahl’s vacuum trimmer cleverly solves that issue: a little vacuum sucks up the hair as you shave, and then once you’re finished you can make the opening wider (or smaller) as you clean your shaving area. It comes with a nose trimmer and guide combs, and you can check its impressive 90 minute battery life via the LED indicator.
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