Sassoon T4000 rechargeable beard trimmer March 2012

The Sassoon T4000 is light and easy to use

The T4000 beard trimmer from Sassoon offers five levels of trimming and a removable guard that lets you get up close for fine tuning your sideburns. We passed it on to a bearded member of the Which? research team who tested it for a month to provide you with our first impressions.

The first thing you notice about the T4000 is how light it is - much lighter than a shaver - so it’s great to pack for a holiday or a weekend away. It’s also easy to hold and there are no problems with accidentally flicking the off-switch mid beard-trim, something that can be annoying.

The long and short of it

It comes with a guard that can be set to trim beards to five lengths between 3mm and 7mm, and the guard can be removed if you’d like to get rid of the beard completely.

Our researcher felt that this range of lengths was quite ambitious as trimming wasn’t exceptional at all settings.

When tidying up a beard that hadn’t been trimmed for a while, it was fine when trimming the longer hairs and leaving them quite long. But when set to trim to 3mm, the results were uneven and it felt like the T4000 wasn’t getting as close as it should do. This could be a disappointment for men looking for a very close trim.

Side to side

With the guard off, the T4000 was fine when edging a beard and sideburns.

The T400 comes with a small, compact charger and base unit and there’s a charging indicator on the back. But it lacks some helpful touches you’ll find on more expensive trimmers, such as a digital display showing how much charge time is left.

There’s oil included to keep the blades lubricated and a brush to keep it clean, but it can’t be washed under the tap, which is a pain.

It’s available online for £20.

Pros: Light, easy to use, cheap
Cons: Not great if you’re looking for an exceptionally close trim