Great design but do your need it?

Author's Rating:

Pros: build quality fast heating

Cons: possible burns noisy fill method is cumbersome

The Bottom Line: 
If it is going to sit on your counter every day you might as well get an attractive looking kettle.

Author's Review
My wife and I have always relied heavily on the good ol' water kettle. Whether it was dorm living and making ramen to boiling water for the newborn, our kettle never left the small condo countertop real estate.

When our most recent model went kaput after about 6 - 7 years, I decided to do some amazoning. These things are not cheap anymore! I held off until one day, we just had to have it... So off to the Mall I went.

A side-by-side comparison told me that this cuisinart models were build very well. It's metal structure is not flimsy at all, and lifts from its base very conveniently. It's made of stainless steel which impressed me. A lot of people do not like the yucky stuff that some think leech out of plastics when heated. Me, I'm not really believing all that. Modern polymers are tested and retested and I have issue thinking that it'd be allowed if it truly were dangerous.

Initial impressions when first running was that this baby heated water pretty fast and turns off when done. It makes a pretty loud noise while heating. Kind of like the exhaust of a jet engine --- I have no idea why.

So we have this nice design --- very traditional. I was initially impressed until I realized that the spout is too skinny to fill it through the spout. If you're like me and have a messy sink, sometimes you cannot really get the whole thing under the sink to fill it up, and prefer filling through the nozzle. Not easy with this model. the handle does not swivel like a traditional kettle. It adds some stability in holding scaldingly hot liquids, but it also makes it hard to move around. There is also no way to determine the liquid level unless you lift the kettle (to check the weight) or open the lid to peek inside. Both methods are not very fun when you're sleepy or groggy. I prefer to click and go.

Another thing was that once a perk but now is a big pain is the stainless steel build. The fact that metal conducts heat amazingly well means that you better watch your knuckles around this baby. I've burned my fingers 2 times already when making bottles or cleaning the counter. You cannot tell this thing is hot until it's already too late.

So why did I keep this kettle that heats fast, is noisy and burns me? Well, the wife was sold on the style, and I'm sold on the build quality. It's exactly what I thought it was when I bought it, and quality means more to me than a burnt knuckle.