OneBlade Pro

The OneBlade Pro is for the man who has a beard but doesn't want to become A Man With A Beard — the one who spends forty minutes weekly maintaining it and talks about 'grain patterns'. This is for controlled scruff. Three-day stubble that looks deliberate rather than unemployed. It's also genuinely useful for anyone who finds wet shaving irritating — and there are more of you than admit it — because the OneBlade's dual-sided blade runs at 200 cuts per second and sits slightly raised from the skin, which means razor burn is largely a non-issue on neck and cheek lines.

What it actually does: trims down to 0.4mm with the included guide combs (1mm, 2mm, 3mm, 5mm on the Pro version), edges beard lines without a steady surgeon's hand, and shaves close enough that you look groomed rather than actually smooth. The honest caveat is that it won't shave as closely as a DE safety razor or a quality foil shaver like the Braun Series 7. If you want skin-level smoothness, the OneBlade will leave you looking like you need a shave by 4pm. That's not a bug the marketing team buried — it's just physics, and worth knowing before you buy.

Performance in practice: the blade, which Philips says needs replacing every four months (anecdotally closer to three if you're using it daily), clicks in and out in about five seconds. The Pro version's battery lasts around 60 minutes of use — enough for roughly 30 sessions without charging. Runtime in real terms means you're not panicking over a dead device mid-trim, which distinguishes it from cheaper OneBlade variants that have genuinely poor battery life. Compared to the Wahl Lithium Ion+ or a Remington PG6025, the OneBlade's blade geometry handles contouring around the jaw and upper lip more intuitively; those tools feel like they're built for body hair that wandered upward. The Panasonic ER-GB96 is a closer competitor and arguably better for pure trimming precision, but costs more and has a steeper learning curve.

Cost/value: the device runs £55-70 / $55-80 depending on where you buy it. Replacement blades are around £10-15 each, so factoring in three to four replacements annually, your real cost is approximately £85-130 per year — more than a pack of Gillette Fusion cartridges, less than a quality safety razor setup, and significantly less than an ongoing barber dependency. The value case is strongest if you're currently paying someone else to maintain your beard shape every two to three weeks. One OneBlade Pro pays for itself in roughly six to eight visits.

Jamie's verdict: this is a genuine-lever tool, not a cope purchase. It won't mog anyone on its own — no trimmer will — but it removes a legitimate obstacle to consistent grooming, which is the only thing that actually matters. The softmaxxing case for it is simple: men who keep their facial hair neat look better than men who don't, and the OneBlade Pro makes 'keeping it neat' require approximately seven minutes twice a week. If you're wet shaving for skin-level smoothness, keep doing that. If you're doing literally anything else, this is probably worth owning.