Philips Norelco - Beard and Hair Trimmer Series 5500, BT5511/49 - Black/Silver

Coming up on 4 years of full beard ownership, I have gotten by with standard electric razors with the flip up trimmer, or separate trimmer head. Not anymore. I switched over to the Phillips Norelco 5000 series (Model BT5511about 2 weeks ago. I previously used a Phillips Norelco 6400 with the beard trimmer attachment, which has been in service since 2015. I liked my 6400 but I was never comfortably able to use the guide comb (it would pop off occasionally), so I would just free hand it. It also had a habit of heating up when in use and would be almost hot to the touch unless I got it wet first. I think trimming my beard was putting too much strain on it. This is where the 5000 series comes in. Design The 5000 series design is an ergonomically comfortable form with a stainless steel and plastic shell. It feels nice to hold, and is it is fairly lightweight. The design is clean and sleek, so you can leave the shaver out on the bathroom vanity without offending your wife/SO. There is a single button for power, an LED indicator, and cylinder you roll right or left to select with depth of the guide combs. Just above the selector cylinder there is backlit window that shows 2 different numbers on top of each other. You read the top number when using the 0.4-10mm comb, and the bottom for the 10.4-20mm. The cylinder has 20 positions for you to fine tune the length you want (40 total with the 2 different combs). The guide combs themselves look and feel well made – they don’t feel prone to breakage. The trimmer has an IPx7 water immersion rating, so it can be rinsed off without any worries. The manual says to use the trimmer only in dry conditions, which I have followed. However, the IP rating would lead me to believe you should be able operate it in a wet condition (i.e. the shower). Test this hypothesis at your own risk. The trimmer comes with a proprietary charge cable that plugs into the charge port at the bottom of the trimmer body. Performance I have to say the trimmer performed quite well. It had zero issue scaling back my beard and cleaning up my neckline. The guide combs worked quite well, and I was able to use, and adjust them with confidence. The trimmer is relatively quiet in its operation (a little quieter than my 6400). The trimmer didn’t leave any partially cut/split hairs and gave me a nice and even shave. I was able to make sharp and clean lines/edges. The combs really helped me shape my beard evenly. Honestly this was the easiest shave I have had in several years. It took a little longer since I was using the guide combs, but at no point did I have to worry about accidently shaving a bald spot into my face. Cleanup was pretty easy. The combs pop right out and can be tapped out or washed off. The trimmer head washes out under the faucet, or you can use the included brush to brush it out. After 3 months (per the manual) you should pop the trimmer head off and clean out the inside. Run time hasn’t been an issue for me. I have shaved twice now – 10 min each time without a charge in between. Battery life is advertised at 90 min, so I have plenty of charge to spare. I have not, and don’t plan to cut my hair with this trimmer aside from edging the back of my neck. I think it will do just fine, but you may need to take it slow if you are buzzing off a lot of hair. Also, the manual recommends not having wet hair when you use it. What I didn’t like For the most part this is a great trimmer – the design and performance hit the mark. The areas I didn’t care for mainly stem from comparisons to my 6400. My 6400 has a stand/charging base that I greatly miss. Plop it into the dock and it starts charging. The 5000 has no base and has a charger plug to insert. I might look it 3D printing a base/stand at work in my spare time. I also still can’t wrap my head around why this uses a proprietary plug or any company for that matter. The charger is a 15V 5.4W (0.36A), which is the same charger as my 6400. They could have changed the charging circuit to accept a standard 5V USB charger and made it compatible with a charger that you could find anywhere. Also, the LED charging indicator needs to give feedback for the battery life – seems like a missed opportunity. The last thing I might miss is the travel lockout of my 6400. I could lockout the power button so it wouldn’t turn on while inside my luggage. It’s a nice feature, but maybe the 5000 isn’t as susceptible to this so it isn’t needed. For the most part these are small issues that don’t impact the entire point of the trimmer – cutting hair. Overall, I really like my new beard trimmer. Looking back, I wish I would have picked a beard trimmer up years ago instead of my 6400. If it lasts as long as my 6400 has then I will definitely be happy.

This trimmer checks all of boxes for me. It is well-built, has great battery-life, provides numerous adjustable length options (with a great system), is easy to clean AND, quite simply, it delivers great results. That is all there really is to it. I rarely keep a long beard, keeping my facial hair quite short, and I often like to go with a longer stubble. This trimmer tackles both of those tasks with ease. Further, while I have not taken it to my head yet, it makes cleanup of my side burns and around my ears a breeze. You can easily get quite a few uses before you need to charge the trimmer, and you can use it while plugged in if needed. When you are done, clean-up could not be easier, just run it under some water. If you are looking for a trimmer, I think this is a great choice, and I think you will be as happy with it as I am.

Picked this Norelco 5500 beard trimmer because I wanted a cordless trimmer to hopefully make shaving my beard and head easier. The 5500 is very compact and lightweight making it easy to handle and it is very quiet compared to my old corded buzzer. The included guards easily attach to the trimmer by sliding into a groove on each side. Adjusting the height is also very easy by turning the adjustment knob just above the power switch. My first use was without any guard on to shave my beard down. Was very pleased that the 5500 shaved it down to a barely there stubble. It took only 1 pass in some areas but more in others. Second use was to shave my head. This is where I say to look over the 5500 or even look over the manual. Coming from an old school buzzer I assumed the guards were a certain length. First pass and the 5500 shaved my hair as if no guard was attached! This is when I realized that you use the adjustment knob to raise the guard to your desired height! Hahaha which if I had looked at the package closer I would have known that. Oh well lesson learned. For the most part it only took 1 pass but again some areas took 1 or 2 more but overall was way faster than the old buzzer. The 5500 is a little narrower than my old buzzer which took some getting used to the feel for getting the back of my head. Overall the 5500 performed great! Easy to use and adjust (when you pay attention) and the lightweight and cordless use make it a very good trimmer!

I had been using Philips Norelco vacuum trimmers for years. Unfortunately, they discontinued that product. I try to couple different things prior to this one, and found this one to be the best of those I tried. It seems to be a fairly decent quality product, and trims evenly. I've had the product for a while, and I've only needed to recharge it once so far. It holds the charge for a very long time. The product is a good size, and could wait. I've not used the hair attachments, as I bought it just for beard trimming. I keep my beard of stubble length, and it works great for that.

Works good no need to worry about charging last several beard trims