I am someone who loves going to the dentist, so when a toothbrush is designed and recommended by dentists I get excited. But I’m not sure the Ordo Sonic+ makes it into the best electric toothbrush category.
It has a battery life of over 3 weeks which makes it great if you are someone who is on the road a lot. It also looks good with a lot of colours to choose from and the brush heads are fully recyclable to reduce waste.
Although the Ordo Sonic+ may look good, it feels flimsy in use. It uses sonic pulses to dislodge plaque from teeth, for a supposedly dentist-clean finish. However, I found the clean wasn’t as intense as I’m used to from my Oral-B iO3 or my Quip Ultra sonic toothbrush.
There is no pressure indicator on the toothbrush to let you know if you are brushing too hard, which is a major oversight. On top of all this, the controls are often unreliable.
You can find out more in my full Ordo Sonic+ review.
Ordo Sonic+ review: Specs
Ordo Sonic+ review: Price & availability
The Ordo Sonic+ toothbrush is available for $99 at Target in the U.S., or $59 from Amazon U.K. and the Ordo website.
The toothbrush comes in six different colors including pearl violet, white silver, mint green, charcoal grey, arctic blue and rose gold (which I tested).
Ordo offers a two year warranty on the toothbrush and a 60-day money back guarantee in case you don’t love the toothbrush.
The Sonic+ is cheaper than the Quip Ultra ($119), another sonic toothbrush I have tested. The Ordo toothbrush is an affordable option for an electric toothbrush in the U.K.. However, for the U.S. I would say the brush is too pricey for its performance (more on that later).
Ordo Sonic+ review: Design & features
The Ordo Sonic+ comes in six different colors, so there is an option to suit everyone’s tastes. The toothbrush looks good, and with its accompanying charging stand, didn’t look out of place in my bathroom. However, when using it, the brush feels far from premium.
The brush head is oval-shaped. I usually prefer a round-head toothbrush as you can get around every tooth efficiently. The oval shape of the sonic toothbrush head is quite large, so it was hard to reach right to the back of my mouth.
There is no pressure indicator on the toothbrush to tell you when you are applying too much pressure. For me, this is an essential feature of electric toothbrushes as brushing too hard can lead to tooth sensitivity and gum recession. Not to mention you’re going to wear out that brush head way quicker.
The bush heads are fully recyclable though. While the brush head is lightweight, it feels quite cheap and is flimsier than other brush heads I’ve used in the past.
The brush head has a silicone polishing element in the middle of the bristles. This supposedly removes stains from the teeth but I found it to be quite annoying when brushing.
It dragged along my teeth and felt uncomfortable. Perhaps I was applying too much pressure when brushing, but without a pressure indicator, how am I supposed to know?
The bristles of the brush head are softer than any I have used in the past and feel like they would wear down easily. I think the head would require replacing before the recommended three months.
The brush has three cleaning modes that can be selected by clicking the on/off button multiple times. The modes are: sensitive, clean, white, and massage. This gives the option to personalize your cleaning for whatever you want to achieve.
Sometimes, rather than changing between the modes when I hit the button multiple times, it just turned the brush off and on again. I thought I may have the wrong technique, but there was seemingly no rhyme or reason for the toothbrush deciding to change mode or turn off.
The toothbrush has a two-minute timer with automatic shut off. It also has a “quad pacer” timer (which is a feature on most new electric toothbrushes) where the toothbrush vibrates every 30 seconds to signal you should move on to the next quadrant of your mouth.
The Ordo Sonic+ has a waterproof rating of IPX7. With this rating, the toothbrush can be fully submerged under water, and Ordo says you can brush your teeth in the shower. Oral-B also says its toothbrushes can be used in the shower but says not to submerge them.
Ordo Sonic+ review: Cleaning performance
While the Ordo Sonic+ looks good, its cleaning performance is nowhere near as good as I’m used to.
The brush produces 40,000 sonic pulses per minute to dislodge plaque from hard to reach areas. While I wasn’t totally unimpressed by the clean I got from this brush, it didn’t make my mouth feel as clean as the Quip Ultra sonic toothbrush.
Ordo says the toothbrush improves gum health, and it was gentle on my gums… but maybe too gentle. I didn’t feel like the clean was powerful enough.
Ordo also says the brush is designed for stain removal. To remove stains the brush head has a little silicone stub — a polishing element — to remove stains for a whiter smile.
I don’t have any staining issues with my teeth so I can’t attest to how well that works, but what I can say is that I found it massively annoying. It was constantly dragging along my teeth and felt very strange. Unfortunately there isn’t the option of a brush head without the polishing stub.
The Ordo Sonic+ has four different brush settings. In all honesty, there isn’t much of a difference between each setting since the brush head bristles are so delicate anyway.
The only setting that felt different was the massage setting. This is designed to be gentle on gums, but I found that every setting was extremely gentle... too gentle! While the sonic pulses of the other setting were continuous, massage had short pauses between the sonic vibrations.
It was certainly more delicate than the other three settings, but as I noted previously, the bristles are so soft that after using this setting I felt like I needed to brush my teeth again.
I also tested out the whitening setting as I wanted to see if it would actually whiten my teeth. However I saw no difference in the whiteness of my teeth before using the toothbrush for a week and after.
Ordo Sonic+ review: Battery life
The Ordo Sonic+ is rechargeable via the included charging dock. The charging dock matches the color of the toothbrush itself so they look cohesive when put together.
The brush displays a red flashing light when it needs to be charged. Ordo boasts a battery life of over three weeks from a single charge.
After using the brush for a whole week it has not run out and shows no signs of slowing down either. This is a positive for me as when I have used my Oral-B iO3 for 5 days I can feel it slowing down and giving a less powerful clean.
Knowing that I could take the Ordo Sonic+ on holiday and not waste luggage space on the accompanying charging dock is a real win.
Ordo Sonic+ review: How does it compare?
The Ordo Sonic+ cleaned my teeth well enough for a toothbrush that only costs £59 in the U.K. but would I spend the $99 it costs in the U.S.? Probably not. There are far better toothbrushes out there when you start nearing the $100 mark.
I recently tested the Quip Ultra ($119) which is also a sonic toothbrush. The Quip made me feel like I had an instantly cleaner smile and actually whitened my teeth in a week.
The Quip is a far better use of your money if buying in the U.S., but in the U.K. the Ordo Sonic+ is a far more affordable option.
Ordo Sonic+ review: Verdict
Despite the range of colors available and the impressive battery life, the Ordo Sonic+ is pretty basic for an electric toothbrush. While it cleans to a basic level, I prefer a more intense clean.
The toothbrush feels cheap and flimsy when brushing, especially the brush head, and the silicone stub for polishing is annoying to get used to.
While the toothbrush has different settings to choose between depending on the clean you want to achieve, I found there wasn’t much difference in them. Not to mention that sometimes rather than switching settings the brush would simply turn off.
For £54 in the U.K. this brush is affordable and works well. But for around $100 in the U.S. you could pick up an electric toothbrush that performs far better.
