Laifen P3 Pro review: a tiny electric shaver designed for travel

We tried the Laifen P3 Pro, a tiny electric shaver that fits in your hand and slips easily into a bag.

I still remember the buzz of my teenage years when the first hairs appeared under my nose and on my chin. Not long after came the nicks from razors and the not-always-successful experiments: moustache, goatee, chinstrap-take your pick. Then, helped along by marketing, I fancied trying an electric shaver to save time. Back then, that purchase wasn’t exactly a triumph.

Devices like this often arrive with a familiar set of compromises. A shape that doesn’t always follow the contours of your face; a battery that gives up after you’ve only shaved one cheek; hairs trapped in the foil and tugged rather than cut, with that horrible feeling of having your chin plucked with tweezers.

I won’t pretend otherwise: I didn’t rush back to try again. After years sticking with the famous three-blade “ultimate masculine perfection”, I eventually settled on a beard maintained with a trimmer and a safety razor-an arrangement that suits me perfectly. So I’m not an electric-shaver expert; if anything, I’d kept a bad memory of them… albeit one that’s nearly 30 years old. Over three decades, the market has moved on, and so has the tech. When I was asked to test the Laifen P3 Pro, my first thought was: “why not try again?”.

The story of the Laifen P3 Pro

Laifen is a Chinese brand founded in 2019 by Hongxin Ye, described as “a visionary creative tinkerer” (and, apparently, a modest one). Its first claim to fame was a high-speed brushless motor (110,000 revolutions per minute), which was built into a hair dryer from 2020-one intended to take on brands such as Dyson at a lower price.

Six years on and after a handful of products (including shavers and electric toothbrushes), I ended up with a new device in hand: the Laifen P3 Pro. It’s a three-blade electric shaver powered by a dual linear motor. The three watchwords are: “Power, Precision, Perfection”. Hence P3.

A shaver that fits in your hand

The first thing you notice about the Laifen P3 Pro is its size. While most shavers and trimmers are long to provide a substantial handle, this one opts for a miniature body-roughly comparable to nothing more than the head of some rivals. That footprint will particularly appeal to frequent travellers, who can drop it into a wash bag without a second thought.

Despite the compact build, the P3 Pro is genuinely pleasant to use. It sits in the palm of your hand and glides across the area you’re shaving without forcing you to adjust your grip. Rounded edges and a single-piece, aluminium unibody make it comfortable and secure to hold.

On the side there’s just one button, used to switch between three states. A short press turns it on or off, while a long press activates “flight mode” (locked). That way, if you misplace the magnetic plastic cap, it’s less likely to wake up and accidentally shave your beautiful cashmere jumper at the bottom of your suitcase.

A daily shave-or nothing at all

Because I normally wear a beard, I wondered whether the Laifen P3 Pro could handle it directly or whether I’d need to trim first. To find out, I let my facial hair grow a bit wild for a few days before giving the electric shaver a go.

First attempt: on the cheek, moving the P3 Pro from the base of the hair around the middle of my neck up to my cheekbone. Bottom to top, then top to bottom, several times, changing the pressure as I went. The before/after comparison was, to put it mildly, disappointing. Yes, the cheek looked thinner, but it certainly wasn’t shaved-far from it. Dense patches barely changed, and the sparser areas still weren’t clean.

What’s more, in a few places I felt that familiar tugging sensation again, and the reason is straightforward. To avoid pulling, you need to run the device against the grain, which is easy enough on areas where hair grows in one direction. It’s much trickier on my neck, where the hair does whatever it likes, and along the jawline, where some hairs follow the mandibular line while those just above grow vertically.

In short, after that first failure, I decided to clear the bulk with a trimmer and try again. The second pass was noticeably more convincing, but still not flawless. Even after lots of passes, there were hairs left on my neck and at the corner of my jaw, under the ear. Elsewhere, it still wasn’t perfectly crisp. Trying to shape facial hair (goatee, moustache, sideburns-whatever you fancy) is also very difficult. You’ll need practice to get straight, neat lines without having to tidy up afterwards with a manual razor.

So the Laifen P3 Pro is aimed mainly at people who shave completely and want a daily maintenance tool. As soon as hair becomes too thick, too long, or too complex, the results turn patchy.

A pleasant surprise on the scalp

For my beard, the P3 Pro doesn’t really fit my personal needs, since I can’t even have fun doing precise, extravagant shapes. On my scalp, though, the hair is less dense (no comment), fairly uniform, and very short. There, I was genuinely pleasantly surprised by the outcome-despite this use never being mentioned by the brand. Yes, it takes several passes and you may want a few blade touch-ups around the edges of the ears, but the finish is clean. Better still, the Laifen P3 Pro is gentle on skin. Where a safety razor can leave me slightly irritated immediately after shaving, I felt no discomfort here.

That benefit comes with a downside: the shave isn’t as close as a blade, the skin doesn’t feel as smooth, and you’ll likely need to shave a bit more often.

Maintenance

Once you’re done shaving, it’s time to clean up. Here, the Laifen P3 Pro has a major advantage: its IPx7 rating means it’s water-resistant. You can rinse it under the tap, or even use it in the shower.

To do so, you simply unclip the magnetic head-easy even without fingernails-then wash both the head and the body with water. However, to dislodge any small hairs stuck in corners, you’ll have to manage without a brush, an accessory that’s usually included with most shavers or trimmers.

Over time, there’s another frustration: you can’t replace only the blade. Once it dulls, you’ll need to swap the entire head (€45).

Battery life

With a full charge, the Laifen P3 Pro lasts around 1h30. That runtime is split into 10 min sessions, after which it switches off automatically-a way to prevent the battery being completely drained if it turns on inside your bag.

Charging is via USB-C, a very welcome standard. Just ten minutes on a cable is enough to complete a full shave.

Our verdict on the Laifen P3 Pro

The Laifen P3 Pro is a charming, travel-friendly electric shaver. It’s compact and easy to handle, and it works well for an everyday full shave-enough to stand in for a blade. However, it’s short on accessories (a brush would be enough) and, above all, it lacks versatility.

If your goal is simply to shave everything off, it does the job. But if you want to sculpt a particular shape, you’ll have to go back over it with a razor afterwards. On its own, it can’t deliver perfectly sharp finishing lines.

For home use, unless you specifically want a compact format, paying €200 is a hard luxury to justify compared with electric shavers sold for half-or even a quarter-of that price. The P3 Pro’s real strength is undeniably its size, which makes it effortless to keep in a bag or a glovebox. That way, you can always have something to hand to clear away those unsightly stubble sprouts that show up on the morning of an important meeting.

Laifen P3 Pro

Price: 200 €

Overall score

8.0/10 (8)

What we like

• Easy to slip into a bag
• Simple to use
• Easy to clean
• Standard charging port

What we like less

• Shaving can be imprecise
• Entire head must be replaced when the blade wears out
• No cleaning brush included
• Still quite expensive

Buy the Laifen P3 Pro