Phillips Norelco is a brand that’s known the world over for their easy to use, innovative trimmers and electric shavers. Their latest model, the Multi-Groomer is one of their best stubble trimmers to date. This isn’t just your average facial hair trimmer. It comes loaded with a wide range of trim guards that will allow you to choose the length for your sideburns, beard, mustache, neck hair, and more. Its durable design combined with its longer than average runtime are just a couple of reasons why this trimmer continues to dominate the market.
There’s no doubt that this is one of Norelco’s top-selling trimmers, but can it provide the type of close shave and cutting precision that the manufacturer claims that it can? Keep on reading to find out.
Table of Contents
Overview and Features
If you like to keep a well-groomed beard, then the odds are you’ve been through your fair share of trimmers over the years. The average trimmer has a lifespan of just six months. If you prefer to keep up on your look daily, or even a few days a week, this tends to put a lot of wear and tear on a trimmer. Lower-priced models simply don’t have what it takes and often wear out in even less time. However, there are those popular major brands out there that make it a point to pay attention to what their customers need and want and Phillips Norelco is one of them.
The Multi-Groomer isn’t your average beard trimmer. In fact, it can work as a sideburn, eyebrow, and nose hair trimmer as well. It features a one hour charge time and a five hour runtime, which is pretty impressive for a trimmer in this price range.
This set comes with a variety of guards that can handle thick beards up to seven millimeters and hair up to sixteen millimeters. The trimming heads are specifically designed for fade cuts and eyebrows. Additionally, the trimmer can be used as an ear and nose trimmer as well.
Product Rating:
- Beginner-friendly
- Can be used on sideburns, mustache, beard, nose hair, and ear hair
- Stainless steel construction
- Rubber ergonomic grip
- Thirteen guards
- Three trim functions
Battery
If you’re tired of battery-powered trimmers that run out of juice in the middle of a shave, then you’ll be happy to learn that this model features a longer than average runtime of five hours. The charge time is a little lengthy for some, coming in at one hour.
Dual-Blade System
The trimmer’s dual-blade system will run two passes over your face in a single movement, using small sharp interlocking blades that look like tiny teeth. These self-sharpening blades brush up against each other as they cut, allowing the blades to sharpen themselves as they work. This will result in reduced skin irritation and a closer shave.
Foil Shaver
The foil shaver head is designed for closer shaves, so it can be used for a straight shave or to clean up areas around your beard. The foil head’s thinner shape is designed to make it easy to get in and cleanly shave difficult areas, using straight edges.
Norelco’s past stubble trimmer line, the 5000 series was a huge hit, but the manufacturer has made this trimmer bigger and better by including the foil head attachment. While this attachment is designed to provide a closer shave it can struggle when trimming finer hair.
Durable Design
The trimmer’s construction is all class. The thick stainless steel body does a great job of protecting the trimmer during transport or if it gets dropped. Since this material is corrosion-resistant, you can easily clean the trimmer by rinsing it under the faucet.
Construction
The trimmer measures in at just a little over ten and a half inches in length and comes complete with a black rubber trim and chrome handle. The rubberized cover helps to improve your grip, even if your hands are wet. This is a cordless trimmer, but it can also work as a corded trimmer, for added convenience.
Trimmer Functions
The trimmer features strong, stainless steel blades and are designed to cut through thick and fine hair.
Other trimmer settings include:
- Extra wide trimmer-This attachment is designed to efficiently cut larger areas of hair quickly and evenly.
- Narrow detail trimmer-This precision trimmer attachment will make it simple to cut small, hard to access areas of your beard.
- Nose and ear trimmer-The narrow rotary cutter is designed to safely trim both nose and ear hair with minimal irritation.
Trim Guards
The guards for the trimmer have been reinforced in order to prevent buckling and bending. The guards fit over the trimmer in order to ensure an even, clean cut.
Guards include:
- Two stubble guards: One and two millimeter
- Three beard guards: Three, five, and seven millimeter
- One eyebrow guard: Six millimeter
- Four hair guards: Four, nine, twelve, and sixteen millimeter
- Two body guards: Three and five millimeter
- Two fading guards: Four and nine millimeter
As you can see, this set comes with a wide variety of trimming options that are designed to suit most user’s needs.
Performance
The trimmer must be fully charged before the first use, which can take approximately three hours. When charging, the trimmer’s indicator light will continue to flash until the trimmer is fully charged. Once it’s charged the indicator light glows constantly to show that the process is complete. When the trimmer’s battery is almost out of juice the light will turn orange.
For best results, we found that this shaver works the best on dry hair and skin. Using the trimmer is simple. The guards can be attached by sliding the front portion over the cutting teeth. In order to secure the guard, push firmly down in the center of the guard until you hear a click. To remove or swap out a guard, pull the back portion up gently as you slide the guard forward. In order to ensure optimal performance, the trimmer must be cleaned after each use.
The variety of guard options and lengths makes this trimmer a great choice if you need to learn how to shape a long beard, thin out a thicker beard, or you prefer a cleanly cut beard with defined edges.
While the shaver can be carefully rinsed off, it does not have a water resistance rating, which means you cannot use it in the shower. The inability to enjoy a wet shave can be a deal breaker for some buyers. As we mentioned earlier, we found that the trimmer does not work well on wet skin or hair. However, in terms of dry quality shaves, this model is an excellent choice.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Pros
- Beginner-friendly
- Can be used on sideburns, mustache, beard, nose hair, and ear hair
- Stainless steel construction
- Rubber ergonomic grip
- Thirteen guards
- Three trim functions
Cons
- Not designed for wet shaves
- Price
How Does the Multi-Groomer Stand Up to the Competition?
The Conair Man i-Stubble Ultimate Flexhead Trimmer takes a different approach to facial hair trimmer design. Unlike this model by Norelco, the Conair trimmer is equipped with a flexible head, which can result in a closer, cleaner shave. It also comes with a total of fifteen length settings, and a digital LCD display. But while this model comes with some great bells and whistles, it doesn’t offer quite as many grooming options as the Multi-Groomer does. Like this Norelco model, the Conair trimmer cannot be used for wet shaves, however, considering its reputation for cutting precision, we’d argue that even with a dry shave this model can deliver. But the biggest downside here is the fact that it’s more than twice the price of the Norelco shaver.
Conclusion and Rating
Product Rating:
It’s not common that you’ll come across a trimmer that can handle all of your facial care needs, but somehow, the manufacturer has pulled it off.
Versatile, loaded with some great extras, and built to last, while it may not be a wet and dry trimmer, it still has what it takes to provide that close shave or precise trim that all men are looking for.
The Phillips Norelco multi-groom can handle it all. If you’re on a tight budget and want a tool that can work as a beard trimmer, stubble trimmer, ear and nose hair trimmer, and detailed grooming tool, then then your search is over. We gave this trimmer a rating of five out of five stars.
