Review (5/5): Not as fragile as people make it sound, and very inexpensive
I find the reports of people having their toothbrushes fail quickly to be quite overblown. My wife and I have owned several of these. It's true, one of them stopped working (my wife drops hers a lot), but mine has lasted me almost a solid 3 years.
And - if one does stop working, it only costs 1/5th as much as a rechargeable sonicare, so you can buy 5 of these, and even if they only last 6 months apiece, you're still ahead of where you'd be with a rechargeable.
Also - if you find that water *does* get in to the battery compartment and corrodes the battery contact points... just clean them off, and it'll start working again. Magic!