I was watching an infomercial on the Wahl cordless vacuum beard trimmer. I actually was looking to see if there was a hair trimmer with comparable features and I was a little put off by Wahl's price and found this Remington HC6550 at way less than the Wahl kit. Remington, to me, was always a company for electric shavers, right up there with Norelco, so I was skeptical about buying a hair clipper from a "electric shaving" company. When you research hair clippers, they always promise a durable product with great results. Uhm, NOT REALLY, not so much as far as results. I've owned a Conair (plug in) hair clipper which sounded professional by its hum, but it was terribile. The blades pulled at my hair, and didn't really trim the hairs efficiently in one sweep, which ended up to be time consuming and a big let down from its shabby results. I was a little happier when I purchased a Panasonic wet/dry cordless trimmer. It did a better job at trimming the sides of my hair, but still it was not something that left me overjoyed, but it was and still is reliable when I need to trim bushed up sideburns or growing whiskers or doing a little manscaping. The only big problem was that the trimming head was narrow, therefore trimming the sides and the back of my head took time to accomplish. I was excited to receive the Remington quicker than expected and didn't waste time in doing an initial charge. It didn't come in a retail box but a factory box, but who cares, everything was going into the included dopp bag. It didn't take much time to charge fully, which is a good sign that the product was manufactured recently and didn't lose its factory electrical juicing. The unit looked pretty self explanatory, there was a button to release the receptacle which I initially overlooked and was wondering why it was a little difficult to separate the canister from the clipper and glad I didn't break it when I was tugging to pull it out. And, of course, there is the on/off switch. It feels bigger in the hand compared to a regular clipper, and might seem hard to wield, but you'll get used it after a few uses. Turning it on you could hear a powerful vacuuming sound. It's not very loud, but it definitely blotted out the sound of the clipper blades. It didn't sound weak, which was definitely reassuring. You place the guide on as you would with any standard clipper and there should be no issues. People have commented that the guides are a bit flimsy, and I do agree, but I don't think I'll break them since I've had the experience putting them on and off of clippers in the past. I made sure not to trim my hair until I got this baby so I could do my first test run with it right away. No disappointments whatsoever. The blade was sharp and glided through my thick, course hair with so much ease and I didn't have to make so many passes to get all the hairs trimmed to the same length so it saved me time trimming my hair, and of course, with doing any cleanup because of the built in vacuum. In the past, the clipper/trimmer I used would make as sound like it was going through a wood chipper, or at least it seemed that way. The Remington blades were so sharp that it made this odd sound, weird like the sound you would hear if you were strumming the teeth of a fine tooth comb. It sounded really cool. The vacuum did an awesome job of picking up most of the hairs, I'd say 99.8%, which is 99.8% better than all that hair that used to fall on my shoulders, the back of my neck, my cheeks, and on the floor and in the sink. It would've blew my mind if I didn't have to towel off or rinse off any leftover hair on me or didn't have to change my shirt and walk right out the door after the trim. Perhaps one day, if the design is improved. I also liked the cool air rushing out of the vacuum. It felt nice blowing on my scalp as I was trimming my hair. Highly recommended. I was afraid of receiving a product that was promising a lot, but couldn't deliver. I was quite amazed and satisfied with this, and I'm happy I won't dread trimming my hair anymore because of having to clean up.
