I got the Norelco Arcitec 1050 electric razor for myself a few days before Christmas.
My old Norelco still worked, but the blades had gotten pretty dull. So, buy new blades, right? A good theory, except:
- Damned if I can figure out the model of the old razor, It’s nowhere visible on the razor itself.
- In my experience, Norelco charges a pretty hefty price for their razor blades. Like, $35 each.
I was toying with the idea of checking to see if Fry’s still had the $29.99 shaver bin and picking up one of those, but instead I tried my father’s Arcitec 1050x over Thanksgiving, and was pretty impressed with the way worked, especially on my neck (always a tricky area). Plus my parents found a newspaper* ad from Norelco with a $20 off coupon, along with a flyer from Target offering a $20 gift card for buying it (turns out, in the itty bitty tiny print at the bottom of the ad, you had to buy the Norelco Nose Hair Trimmer ($14.95) to get the $20 gift card, but I have been thinking about getting one of those off and on for a while, so I went ahead and got that too.) The heads seem well designed (though I couldn’t figure out how you open the head just by looking at it). And it has a sturdy hardcase for travel.
This is definitely a much better shaver than my last one, and even better than my last one was when it was brand spanking new. In addition to producing a lot closer shave overall, it does a lot better job shaving my neck without producing red chaffing the way my old one did (which was why I had to use disposable razors there). It’s much easier to submerge the head in hot water for wet shaving (and in fact they recommend it for cleaning the heads).
Drawbacks: The trimmer included on it is a little more awkward to use than the one on the old razor. (Then again, since I bought the separate nose hair trimmer (which works OK), I probably won’t be using it as much.) Also, once when I turned it on with the head underwater to clean it, it locked up for a minute. It worked after that, but it was a bit frustrating not knowing why. Though the induction charger works quite well, it’s much larger than just the old cord arrangement, which means it will be a bit more cumbersome to take on trips. Finally, while it does a better job on my neck, it isn’t quite close enough for me to dispense with the disposable razor for those spots.
Let’s call it 4 Stars out of 5
★ ★ ★ ★
*A “newspaper” was a series of large sheets of paper folded together upon which the “news stories” compiled by “journalists” (a sort of primitive blogger) of (usually) the preceding day had been printed as a carrier medium for print advertizing, and which were either delivered to the driveways of subscribers or sold in kiosks around town. Go ask your grandparents what they looked like.
