The colour-coded combs are the feature that makes home clipping survivable. Every set of guide combs looks identical in a drawer and identical on the clipper, and getting halfway down a dog before realising you fitted the wrong one is a specific kind of misery. Colour coding removes it.

There are 8 combs in the box — 3, 6, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22 and 25mm — on a precision-ground blade, driven by a lithium battery giving up to 120 minutes of running from a 180-minute charge. It runs corded or cordless, so a flat battery halfway through is an inconvenience rather than a disaster. Wahl design it for wiry, smooth, short, medium, long and silky coats. The kit includes the charger, blade oil, a cleaning brush, an instruction booklet and a 7 inch hard case, with a 2 year warranty.

• 8 colour-coded guide combs: 3, 6, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22 and 25mm
• Up to 120 minutes run time from a 180-minute charge
• Lithium battery; runs corded or cordless
• Precision-ground blade
• Blade oil, cleaning brush and a 7 inch hard case included
• 2 year warranty

Clipping is a skill, and a clipper is not scissors. Work on a clean dry coat — clipping a matted or dirty one damages the blade and pulls the skin — go with the lie of the coat, and keep the blade oiled and cool, because a hot blade burns. Some coats should not be clipped at all: a double-coated breed does not grow back the same and the undercoat stops doing its job, so check what your dog's coat is before you start. The blade's own cutting range is quoted two different ways in the supplied specification, so work from the comb sizes, which are unambiguous.

Who it's for: owners doing tidy-ups between grooms, anyone with a dog who finds the salon stressful, and households where the grooming bill has become a monthly fixture.