I Tried the Braun Series 9 Pro Beard Trimmer So You Don’t Have to Gamble on Amazon Clippers
· Vice
I suppose I have KLM and a far-off airport to thank for my new Braun Series 9 Pro beard trimmer. I wouldn’t have bought it if KLM hadn’t lost my checked duffel bag for five days in Europe as I paced around a hotel room 4,000 miles away in Tanzania. And not if, when I was reunited with the duffel later that week, I noticed a few things were missing.
My trusty Braun Series 9 beard trimmer was gone. I’d had it for about three years at that point, and I loved it. You see, I’ve had a beard in one form or another since I had a one tacked onto the front of my age. Although it’s grown a bit longer in the years since I was dipping into and out of college classes, by now I know how to recognize and appreciate a good beard trimmer when I meet one. I hope the son of a bitch who stole it is putting it to good use, at least. He’d better be the best damn looking bearded employee at that airport.
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When I got home to New York a few weeks later, I put in an order for a Braun Series 9 Pro. Through a quirk of Amazon’s sales, it was cheaper than the already excellent non-Pro version I’d owned before. A cheaper upgrade? Why not. When my editor asked me to write a review, I didn’t hesitate. I love this thing.
Braun Series 9 Pro All-in-One Beard Trimmer – Credit: Matt JancerTL;DR – My Quick Verdict
The Braun Series 9 Pro beard trimmer is the best all-in-one trimmer I’ve used in the 20 years I’ve been willingly growing stuff out of my face. I’ve tried tons of brands and models of electric beard trimmer over the years and used them on my face and body, and most fail the test. They’re either so weak that I have to make repeated passes over the same part of my face or their jagged edges cut up my body. Sometimes both.
The Pro even narrowly beats out the non-Pro Series 9 I’d used for the past three years. Maybe you won’t use the extra power mode or the smaller adjustment increments. Or maybe you’ll end up like me and only think you won’t, right up until you have it in your hand and find yourself peering into the mirror at the best version of your beard that you’ve ever seen.
(opens in a new window) BraunSeries 9 Pro Beard Trimmer (opens in a new window)
Available at Amazon Buy Now (opens in a new window)how I tested
I haven’t had a clean-shaven face in 20 years. That doesn’t mean I’m a caveman, or the caveman’s 21st-century progeny, the neckbeard. Every morning after my shower I trim the edges of my mustache/beard combo to keep it tidily shaped, and every few days I set the trimmer guides to a particular length to keep it from looking scraggly.
So I tested the Braun Series 9 Pro beard trimmer in the same way I’d subject any old beard trimmer to on any regular day of my life. For this Series 9 Pro was my own. I’d purchased it and used it daily for a little over two months before I even had the inkling to write a review of it. Judging from the sheer amount of beard shrapnel I’ve cleaned up over the past couple of months, I’ve given it one hell of a test drive.
More Than Just for Beards
Perhaps I should stop calling it a beard trimmer. Braun calls it an “all-in-one beard and body grooming kit,” and as much as I recoil and chuckle when it comes to marketing-speak, I have to agree with them that it’s more accurate than calling it a beard trimmer.
Sure, I use it for my beard. But it works well for… other parts of the body, too. There’s a plastic comb attachment that slips over the trimmer’s bare metal cutting head, meant for smoothly sliding over your body if you want a close trim that’s gentler than the bare metal. I don’t shave myself smooth, but I gave it a few passes to see how it performed, and it was indeed silky smooth.
Not that the two included plastic guides aren’t smooth and painless. They don’t nip delicate skin, unlike most trimmers’ attachments. I’ve used so many electric shavers of all brands over the past two decades, from Wahl to Philips Norelco to Braun to Andis, that I’ve suffered through the sharp edges of clumsily made plastic guides enough to wince when I think back to certain models.
included attachments and case. Not pictured: brush, longer guide, body trimmer head attachment. – Credit: Matt JancerAs much as they pull beard hairs out and slice up delicate face parts, triple the pain favor when it comes to running the jagged guides over delicate body parts. You know what I mean.
Yeah, look. I’m, among other hyphenates, an Italian-American guy who keeps things trimmed so as not to end up being captured by the New York Aquarium and forced to perform tricks to fish in front of crowds every day at one o’clock. Body hair good, too much body hair not so good, at least when it comes to myself.
Braun also includes a nose hair trimmer that functioned better than the one Braun included with my old non-Pro Series 9. Even though it appeared to be the same attachment, who knows if Braun has tweaked it under the hood since I bought my dearly departed non-Pro trimmer three years ago.
What the Pro Gets You
When I was shopping for a new trimmer, I didn’t think I’d need the extra-power of the Pro version, since I never let my beard grow to PNW logger length. But I’d put off buying a new one after my three weeks away, so by the time the Braun Series 9 Pro arrived, I’d had more than a month’s worth of growth sprouting from all over my face like a Chia Pet.
The Pro comes with a stronger motor than the non-Pro Series 9 trimmer. It has a second mode called PowerBoost. When you activate it by pressing the power button a second time, the motor spins at 7500 RPM (revolutions per minute), rather than the regular mode’s 6000 RPM. It’s mildly annoying to have to cycle through this second, unwanted setting if you’re just using the regular power mode that the trimmer defaults to when you turn it on, but it’s only a minor irritation.
Braun Series 9 Pro All-in-One Beard Trimmer – Credit: Matt JancerAnd speaking of irritation, there’s very little when I use the Series 9 Pro to tidy up my beard’s profile. All faces are different, so on and so forth, and so I can only report how friendly the Braun is to my own face. But compared to past trimmers, even past Brauns, it leaves fewer red-tinged abrasions and tiny blood spots on the smooth parts of the skin where I edge the neck fade and cheek to straight lines every day.
Going for the Pro lets you adjust the beard length in smaller increments up to 4mm, too. Instead of increasing by 0.5mm increments, the Pro goes up by 0.25mm. I thought it’d be a marketing trick, but I actually ended up enjoying the greater ability to fine tune the length of my fade, that strip of beard cut shorter than the neck above but not smooth like that below. I was able to be pickier with my mustache length, too. Above 4mm you can adjust the Series 9 Pro in 0.5mm increments all the way up to 20mm, which is a lot longer than it sounds.
I’d take two or three passes over each vertical row of beard as I move across my face, but I don’t have to take as many passes as I have on lesser trimmers. It’s annoying when I need to go over the same parts five or more times. My beard is normally 4-5mm long, and I’ll trim that down after a few days. So it’s not particularly long, although it’s not stubble. And it is thick. I’m fairly sure that if I were a superhero, my superpower would be to grow a really thick beard in a short amount of time, because I’m basically halfway there already. Shut up. I never said it was a good superpower.
full-width vs narrow shaving heads – Credit: Matt JancerAfter that five weeks spent unshaven in Africa, I did appreciate the Pro’s PowerBoost to cut through the swarthy, beard follicle jungle that’d spread over my face. Back to back against the standard mode, it seemed to go through it like butter on the more powerful mode. But for day-to-day use afterward, the regular mode has been fine because I don’t let it go that long and thick.
Powerful Like a Porsche, as Nimble as… a Small Porsche
Braun, I hope you appreciate that one, because I almost wrote Ferrari. But then remembering the pride of the German company, I made the suitable change so as to not further drive a wedge between our two fine countries.
Braun has long made their beard trimmers in China. Unlike their Oral-B-branded electric toothbrushes and beard shavers, which differ in that they’re one-trick ponies designed to get skin as smooth as possible, Braun doesn’t make the Series 9 Pro in Germany. Who knows why.
Having just bought a new Braun Series 8 electric shaver in March, I can say with confidence that the Chinese-made beard trimmer is no less well made than the German shaver. They’re on par when it comes to build quality. Both sit at or near the top of their respective product lineups. The Series 8 shaver is one small step beneath the Series 9 shaver, while the Series 9 Pro all-in-one trimmer is as good as it gets under Braun’s umbrella.
narrow-trimming head on the Braun Series 9 Pro All-in-One Beard Trimmer – Credit: Matt JancerCovered in grippy rubber where the hand grips it tight, the thin Series 9 Pro is lightweight and easy to maneuver. In addition to the full-width metal head, there’s a narrow one that I use to trim nearly smooth two spaces below my lower lip. In the past I’ve managed to use a full-width metal head, but it’s clumsy and just as liable to come out uneven and sloppy looking. The narrow metal head makes it less like trying to do a backwards handstand while holding a milkshake. It just works, accurately and quickly. It’s a must-have accessory, and it comes with the Braun trimmer.
A Battery That Lasts for Weeks
My bathroom isn’t set up in a way that provides a lot of outlets. The one outlet I’ve got is hidden behind an over-the-toilet cabinet and blocked off for all eternity, an either/or situation that presented itself when I moved in.
So when it comes to recharging my electric bathroom appliances, I want something I can plug in irregularly and charge quickly. The Braun Series 9 Pro has an internal, rechargeable, non-replaceable lithium-ion battery that lasts weeks between charges. I usually recharge it every two or three weeks. I could easily go for more than a month if I wanted to run it down close to zero percent.
length adjustment wheel – Credit: Matt JancerRecharging usually takes 30 minutes or less, depending on how low the battery has gotten. It recharges on a stand that plugs into a standard wall outlet. It’s clearly meant to live on your bathroom counter, where the trimmer will await you always at full charge. But if you’re like me and have to charge it every so often instead, it’ll last you a long, long time between recharges.
The included travel case is of very nice quality, but I wish it held all the attachments. Fine, it keeps my trimmer safe when it’s windmilling around inside a suitcase buried in the belly of a jetliner, but what about all those delicate plastic attachments? I worry about them breaking every time I pack them in a suitcase.
The Braun Series 9 Pro at a glance
The Braun Series 9 Pro all-in-one trimmer is a jack of nearly all trimming trades. Eyebows, ears, nose, body, and beard, it’ll do it all. I know because I’ve been using it for more than the past two months to do, literally, it all. It holds a charge for a month, maybe more.
And it comes with a precision cutting head for fine trimming, guides that can handle lumberjack beards up to 20mm long, an ear/nose trimmer, and guides to trim not just beards and mustaches but body hair and eyebrows, too. More important than the features list is that the performance is as good as I could hope for from a trimmer. It was powerful to cut through my five-week back-from-Africa beard and trim my face and body in a much gentler fashion than most other all-in-one trimmers I’ve used over the past 20 years.
shaver vs. trimmer
They’re two totally separate things that have different functions that don’t much overlap. If you need a good shaver, I’ll vouch for the Braun Series 8. It won’t trim your body hair or maintain the length of your beard, but it’s not meant to. It shaves far closer to my skin than the Series 9 Pro trimmer.
Braun Series 9 Pro All-in-One Beard Trimmer to the right of the braun series 8 electric shaver – Credit: Matt JancerThat’s why I have both. The Series 8 electric shaver for the lower part of my neck and higher parts of my cheeks that need to be smooth, and the Series 9 Pro trimmer for uniformly maintaining my beard’s length and keeping the edges neat. They work in tandem.
The Series 8 shaver, like a lot of shavers, has a flimsy pop-up trimmer meant for cleaning up edges. It doesn’t work nearly as well as a dedicated trimmer. If you otherwise keep a clean-shaven face, it’ll do fine for maintaining the length and edges of your sideburns, but if you have a proper beard or mustache then you should get the Series 9 Pro trimmer. It’s more nimble and easier to use, cuts follicles more closely to the skin (than the pop-out trimmer), and has more attachments.
the bottom line
Despite my having used all the major brands of shavers, and despite knowing quite well how to wield, strop, and maintain a straight razor, my day-to-day trimmers and shavers remain Braun. I don’t know when that brand loyalty began, but it’s lasted for most of my adult life. Being pleased with the regular Braun Series 9 trimmer and mourning its loss is what led me to the slightly but definitely better Series 9 Pro.
The next time I fly through that airport, though, I’ll leave my trimmer at home to keep it safe and just bring tiny scissors. I’ve already done my part, inadvertently, to help at least one employee there to up his beard game. This one is all for me, and I’m going to keep it that way.
(opens in a new window) BraunSeries 9 Pro Beard Trimmer (opens in a new window)
Available at Amazon Buy Now (opens in a new window)The post I Tried the Braun Series 9 Pro Beard Trimmer So You Don’t Have to Gamble on Amazon Clippers appeared first on VICE.