I counted the days I was without it... [SEP] My original Sonicare died after about 2 years.  My wife spent [...] bucks on it and needless to say I was not happy to see it go.  You would think a $[...] toothbrush would last pretty much forever...  Anyway, I replaced it with this much cheaper model and am very pleased so far.  In addition to being a lot less expensive it has a much simplified design which should last longer, and has a user replaceable battery.<br /><br />On the negative side, it seems to chew through batteries.  In fact I actually reported the first one Amazon shipped as defective as it stopped working after 5 days.  Turns out the batteries I swapped were dead too and there was nothing wrong with the toothbrush after all.  My bad.  The fresh batteries I installed only lasted maybe 3 weeks or so.  I'm going to use rechargeables from now on, but just be forewarned that this thing gobbles batteries.<br /><br />But in terms of the operation of the toothbrush I love it.  In the short time I had to use a regular toothbrush waiting for this to arrive I felt like I had trench mouth.  No matter how long or how vigorously I would brush my teeth just never felt clean, and by 10AM if felt like I hadn't brushed in days.  The commercial is a cliche but it's true - Sonicare makes you feel like you just walked out of the dentist office.