Philips Norelco HQ9 SpeedXL Replacement Heads

This product contains three replacement heads for the Norelco 9160XL electric razor. After 1 1/2 years of continuous daily usage the original cutting heads were no longer giving a good shave. I decided to replace the original blades with this set.

The good:

1.)Easy to following instruction for replacement on the package, and the actual replacement process was incredibly simple and easy to do.

2.)The new blades functioned perfectly; because the decline in performance of the original blades was so gradual, it was difficult to believe how much of an improvement these replacement blades provided.

The not so good:

Only one complaint; the packaging. The replacement blade were embodied in a package that made it extremely difficult to actually get at the blades. There were a series of 6 grommet eyelets surrounding the entire package making it very secure. I literally had to force scissors between the layers of cardboard to get around the... Read more

Somehow Norelco actually made the HQ9 SpeedXL heads worse than the old lift-and-Cut heads. To make it look like the heads will produce a faster shave, they reduced the area of the outer ring to make room for two additional cutter rings inside the outer ring.

The problem? The inner rings have a slower surface speed than the old, larger area, outer ring. So you actually have a smaller high speed cutter area while the inner rings end up pulling your beard hairs when you try to shave as fast as your old Lift-and-Cut shaver.

Why can't you buy the old lift-and-cut heads to fit you new Smart-Touch shaver? Like all Norelco rotary rasors, each model uses a slightly different drive pin to make you buy the newer, more expensive, heads. Philips knows how to make their old products obselete so you will buy the new "better" stuff.

Amazing what a difference new shaving heads make. I hadn't noticed the gradual degradation in ease of shaving, and thought the problem was with the humidity. Got the new blades and my shaving time was cut by two thirds. Applied the cost savings over getting it in a store to overnight shipping.