I looked at the evidence regarding electric/powered toothbrushes vs. manual. Generally, for medical topics, the highest quality meta-analyses come from the Cochrane Collaboration. They have a fairly recent review from June 2014 (open access).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.
I quote the important parts of the abstract:
Background
Removing dental plaque may play a key role maintaining oral health. There is conflicting evidence for the relative merits of manual and powered toothbrushing in achieving this. This is an update of a Cochrane review first published in 2003, and previously updated in 2005.
Objectives
To compare manual and powered toothbrushes in everyday use, by people of any age, in relation to the removal of plaque, the health of the gingivae, staining and calculus, dependability, adverse effects and cost.
Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials of at least four weeks of unsupervised powered toothbrushing versus manual toothbrushing for oral health in children and adults.
Main results
Fifty-six trials met the inclusion criteria; 51 trials involving 4624 participants provided data for meta-analysis. Five trials were at low risk of bias, five at high and 46 at unclear risk of bias.
There is moderate quality evidence that powered toothbrushes provide a statistically significant benefit compared with manual toothbrushes with regard to the reduction of plaque in both the short term (standardised mean difference (SMD) -0.50 (95% confidence interval (CI) -0.70 to -0.31); 40 trials, n = 2871) and long term (SMD -0.47 (95% CI -0.82 to -0.11; 14 trials, n = 978). These results correspond to an 11% reduction in plaque for the Quigley Hein index (Turesky) in the short term and 21% reduction long term. Both meta-analyses showed high levels of heterogeneity (I2 = 83% and 86% respectively) that was not explained by the different powered toothbrush type subgroups.
With regard to gingivitis, there is moderate quality evidence that powered toothbrushes again provide a statistically significant benefit when compared with manual toothbrushes both in the short term (SMD -0.43 (95% CI -0.60 to -0.25); 44 trials, n = 3345) and long term (SMD -0.21 (95% CI -0.31 to -0.12); 16 trials, n = 1645). This corresponds to a 6% and 11% reduction in gingivitis for the Löe and Silness index respectively. Both meta-analyses showed high levels of heterogeneity (I2 = 82% and 51% respectively) that was not explained by the different powered toothbrush type subgroups.
The number of trials for each type of powered toothbrush varied: side to side (10 trials), counter oscillation (five trials), rotation oscillation (27 trials), circular (two trials), ultrasonic (seven trials), ionic (four trials) and unknown (five trials). The greatest body of evidence was for rotation oscillation brushes which demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in plaque and gingivitis at both time points.
Authors’ conclusions
Powered toothbrushes reduce plaque and gingivitis more than manual toothbrushing in the short and long term. The clinical importance of these findings remains unclear. Observation of methodological guidelines and greater standardisation of design would benefit both future trials and meta-analyses.
Cost, reliability and side effects were inconsistently reported. Any reported side effects were localised and only temporary.
There were moderate benefits for multiple criteria, both short term and long term, in uncontrolled conditions. So ecological validity seems to be high.
I also skimmed some other meta-analyses which had similar results.
Based on this, I bought an electric toothbrush. Evidence based life decisions. :)