Remington Omniblade HG5000 Multi-Pro review: the ally of beard sculptors

Out of the box – after a few minutes of struggling to get rid of its plastic gangue – the Remington Omniblade HG5000 leaves an excellent first impression. Indeed, the main body on which the different heads are plugged is made of brushed metal with the most beautiful effect. The textured part – which should improve the grip of the Omniblade when wet – brings even a little more cachet.

This feeling of quality product is reinforced by the weight of the Remington Omniblade, which reaches just over 100 grams (107 g exactly), which avoids the toy effect that can be felt with lighter devices. Note that its use does not suffer in the least from this slight excess weight since it is perfectly distributed over the entire razor. The balance is perfect and you can easily turn your head in any direction without ever having the impression that it can fall out of your hands.

However, not everything is perfect and the location of the main switch could have been better thought out. Indeed, to operate the Omniblade, you have to turn a ring placed at the base of the razor. And if it doesn’t seem like much, we curse quite quickly against this idea in full shaving, when we want to turn off the machine to pass it under water in order to remove the cut hairs, for example. A button or a slider falling under the thumb would have been, in our opinion, much more practical.

Another grievance, the autonomy witness deserved a little more attention. It consists of 3 diodes placed vertically which light up one after the other until charging is complete. When the Omniblade is working, all the leds light up one after the other from top to bottom and from bottom to top. Finally, when there is only one diode lit, there is no more than 5 minutes of battery life left. All this lacks precision – which is not so rare in the world of razors -, but also simplicity – which is much more.

The Omniblade we tested was delivered to us in its HG5000 Multi-Pro version, the most accessorized in the Remington catalog. Besides the Omniblade body and blade, the box contains three other heads: a precision trimmer (for removing unwanted hair in the nostrils and ear canals), a body trimmer (which is shaped like a chainsaw) and a face brush. To this I add multiple shoes for each cutting head, including a precision guide, adjustable from 0.5 to 5 mm.

In addition, Remington provides a soft pouch for transport and a charging cable to plug into a USB outlet. Unfortunately, the shaver side plug format isn’t as common and this cord shouldn’t be used for anything other than the Omniblade. We would have liked Remington to go all the way and offer a USB Type C socket to extend the compatibility of the Omniblade and avoid the environmental impact of a proprietary cable.

If the range of accessories seems complete, it still lacks, in our opinion, a small brush to clean the Omniblade after use. Passing under running water is unfortunately not enough to remove all the hair residue from the blade.

Like those of the same manufacturer’s Power-X Series X6 HC6000 trimmer, the Omniblade’s blades are sharp enough to deliver a clean, clean cut, even on typically thick, hard-to-slice beard hair. Note that these have a very long life since Remington recommends changing them every 5 years. For comparison, the OneBlade head has to be replaced 3 times a year.

The small size of the Omniblade and the narrowness of its blades give it unparalleled maneuverability. It goes everywhere with ease even on the philtrum, the space between the bottom of the nose and the top of the lips, a narrow zone therefore, and difficult to treat effectively. Of course, it is necessary to avoid placing a guide on the Omniblade blade to maintain this agility. The other side of the coin is that the Omniblade will not be used to shave large areas of the skull even if, technically, this is still quite possible.

For the sake of conscience, we also tested the additional blades. The small precision tool for removing hair from the most inaccessible places has proven to be extremely effective. It is narrow enough to go everywhere and sharp enough not to pull the hair instead of slicing it – which can be painful on these delicate areas. The blades for shaving the body are reminiscent of the Panasonic ER-GY60-H straight razor, except that these are placed all around the holder. With a little flexibility in the wrist, you can easily reach all areas of the body. Once again, it is very difficult to reproach him for anything in terms of the pure and hard cut.