Review (5/5): Technology Delivered!
Somehow, calling the Norelco arcitec 1090 a "Men's Shaving System" seems to be a little pretentious; so I'll still call it a shaver... a very, very good shaver!
I got the aritec with the idea that it just might be time to adjust my look and rid myself of the beard I'd sported for the past two and a half years (long story, dull, boring and not germane to a product review). I played with it and the beard for a week or so and then got real with the scissors and trimmer one evening. Wow! This is great!
This represents my fourth (or fifth?) Norelco shaver over the past 40-odd years, so clearly I'm guilty of some serious brand loyalty. But while my previous Norelco shavers each represented a modest improvement over each predecessor, the arcitec is so far advanced that I'm really amazed. It's cordless (uh.. duh...), but the first appealing little techno-googah in its arsenal is a display that tells you how many minutes worth of charge remain. Nice touch! Another informational readout tells you when to clean the stubble from the unit, nice for absent-minded souls like me that can get in a rush some mornings and are left wondering days later why the razor sounds a little "off".
I'm kind of a "good design" junkie. I can't innovate myself, but I'd like to think that I recognize when the designers really, really sat down and looked for ways to make their product better. The arcitec delivers on that big time!
Cleaning the shaving head ensemble is absurdly easy. The heads just flip up so that you can blow, brush or rinse them out. Yes, I said rinse, as in the use of running water. This isn't the first razor that claims to be water friendly, however it is the first one to give me enough confidence to actually hold the shaving head under the tap. The only criticism that I have is that the trimmer almost seems like something of an afterthought. It's fine for trimming sideburns, however when I had the beard it was a little clunky to use while trimming around the edges etc. But with my newly clean-shaven approach, that's a very minor complaint.
In the end however, all of those lovely little features like numeric display of the remaining battery charge, maintenance and cleaning access, and other things would all fall by the wayside if the quality of the shave were substandard. So I will simply state that the arcitec leaves me with a smoother face than any other shaving system I've ever used... electric shaver or razor blade!
Nothing ticks me off more than paying a premium price for a product that doesn't deliver premium performance. And the arcitec delivers in every way... design, usability, reliability and performance!