Braun 9296cc silver (Open Box)

This review is for the Braun Series 9 9296CC Electric Shaver w/Trimmer. Much as the header for my review indicates, I feel that this shaver is a total piece of junk and a total waste of money, particularly for a price of $310, which is what I paid on Amazon a few days ago. Frankly, the shaver delivered a shave of the quality that I would expect of a $15 electric shaver found on sale at a discount store. I give this electric shaver one star, and, if I could do so, I would give it 0 stars. It simply does not work! Here is my story, with some more details that may help you to understand my 1-star rating for this piece of trash: My DNA heritage is more than one-half Southern Italian, with some additional heritage from other Southern European/Mediterranean regions (i.e. Northern Italy, Greece, Albania), and therefore my facial beard hair is kinda coarse and tough. For many years, perhaps for at least the past 300 years, I used a manual 5-blade shaver (the Schick Hydro 5) in order to achieve a good close shave in a minimum amount of time. Finally, about 4 years ago I decided to make the shift from a manual shaver to an electric shaver. Knowing that my beard grown is kinda coarse and tough, I purchased, after some careful research and due diligence on the web, a Philips Norelco 4100 triple circular head electric shaver model AT810/41 4100 for men ($60 price range). The shaver turned out to be TOTALLY ineffective in cutting my beard, and thus I quickly disposed of it. Then, after further online research and due diligence, I purchased a Remington Remington F5-5800 Electric Shaver (($50 price range). I found that it was not very effective, but that so long as I used it for a dry shave, and used high pressure when shaving (that is, pressing the shaver very hard against the skin of my face; luckily, my facial skin is not very sensitive, and thus can easily tolerate not only dry shaving with an electric shaver, but can also tolerate shaving with an electric shaver using high pressure against the skin), then it did deliver a decent shave, even if I had not shaved in 5 or 6 days, but it admittedly required multiple passes across my face, both up and down, and horizontally, and in both directions. Finally, over the past month, I grew tired of using the Remington electric shaver due to the high pressure and multiple passes that it required (particularly if shaving a 6-to-9-day beard growth), and decided to do some really intensive research and due diligence on the web to find an electric shaver that would be much more efficient and effective than the Remington, and that would also shave a 5-6 day beard growth much faster, and I decided in advance that price would not be an obstacle, that I was willing to pay up to $400 for an electric shaver that would be at least 2 to 2.5X more efficient and effective than the Remington electric shaver. My intensive research finally led me to the Braun Series 9 9296CC Electric Shaver With Precision Trimmer for Men, and so I purchased one on Amazon. It arrived here a few days ago. For a first test, I used it to cut a 5 to 6 day beard growth on my face and neck, and, of course, for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, I elected to use it only for a dry shave, because a dry shave with an electric shaver is more efficient and effective, and faster, than a wet shave with an electric shaver, although it admittedly will cause far more irritation to the skin. Well, this Braun Series 9 shaver turned out to be a total piece of junk, delivering a shave that was far less efficient and effective, and far more time-consuming, than the shave that had been delivered by my previous Remington F5-5800 Shaver, regardless of whether I used the Braun shaver with low pressure, medium pressure, or high pressure. Now, I will say this: This Braun shaver glided very speedily and effortlessly over my bearded face, but unfortunately, it cut few or no beard hairs as it did so, and rather, it simply glided effortlessly over all of the beard hairs, leaving 97 percent of them totally uncut. TOTALLY AMAZING ineffectiveness! BTW, just to be sure, to rule out the possibility that I might have ended up with a shaver that had a bad cutting head, I temporarily swapped out the foil cutting head with a brand new one (over $50 a pop!), and saw no improvement at all! In fact, this new Braun electric shaver was so TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE, INEFFICIENT, and USELESS at cutting my beard hair that even after 17 minutes of intense effort, most of my beard hair growth was still intact on my face, and I was TOTALLY UNABLE to remove it with this shaver -- I remained totally unable to get the shaver to cut those beard hairs! In contrast, my older Remington FS-5800 electric shaver, even using a foil head/blades that were over 13 months old, was always able to cut the same beard growth (that is, 5 to 6 day growth) in less than 7 minutes. So, bottom line is that this Bruan shaver exhibited about six percent of the efficiency/effectiveness that my older Remington FS-5800 electric shaver did, and, in fact, it performed just about as poorly as the above-mentioned first electric shaver that I had tried a few years ago, that is, the Philips Norelco 4100 with triple circular heads, which, as I related above, turned out to be a total joke! Bottom line is that -- despite all of the great reviews to be found online -- this Braun shaver is totally useless to me, and I plan on asking Amazon ASAP for a full refund. Frankly, while I paid ~$310 for this shaver, it is not really even worth $15.