Smooth Performer

COST: Purchased at BJ's in Dedham, MA in Nov 07 for $35.

CONTENTS: Iron. Plastic cup for filling iron with water. User manual.

EASE OF SET UP: You need to fill the iron with water (obviously). It's difficult to fill straight from the tap. Therefore, you're provided a clear plastic fill cup. However, the cup is not well designed; it's too small -- so you need to fill and refill the cup 4 times in order to fill the iron to its maximum. Also, the cup's pour spout doesn't fit well over the iron's fill hole because the hole's hinged cover does not open widely enough to permit the cup to fit. TIP: Use your own small measuring cup to fill.

EASE OF USE: Iron takes about 1 minute to heat up from cold start. It beeps when fully heated. Heat level is controlled by a somewhat difficult-to-rotate wheel. The level setting is indicated on a green LED display, which is great for low light conditions, but if the display were to break, there'd be no way to know the heat setting on an otherwise operable iron. The iron's grip handle is very comfortable. The iron has a good heft: not so heavy it causes arm fatigue, but enough weight to feel solid and heavy enough to press out wrinkles without requiring too much elbow grease. The iron has built-in spray nozzle up front, with a well-placed spray button pressable by your thumb without altering your grip on the iron handle. Teflon coated heat plate slides smoothly over most types of cloth, including silk. This is an improvement over uncoated, stainless steel plates on some competing irons. The iron blasts steam using a button well placed next to the spray button. You cannot, however, manually control the pressure of the blast. The blast will be low, medium or high pressure depending on what fabric setting of the iron. Thus, high heat settings (e.g., cotton and linen) yield large steam blasts. Overall, this loss of manual control is probably a good thing, since you wouldn't want to use high pressure with delicate fabric (e.g., silk), and saves you from having to set the steam setting separately. The power cord is attached to the iron's base with a swivel feature. This helps keep the cord out of the way of iron, although the swivel is not as frictionless as it could be, so occasionally you need to manually swivel the cord. The iron has auto shut off; how soon it shuts off depending on whether upright (2 minutes) or horizontal (30 seconds).

EFFECTIVENESS OF PERFORMANCE: The iron did well at heating to the appropriate temperature at each setting. It worked well on all types of fabrics. The spray shoots a water over a 5 inch distance with 2 inch width -- i.e., suitably spread out spray. The volume of the spray was a little heavy; it made the fabric a bit too wet. I wish there was an extra half-a-square-inch to the plate's surface area; it was a bit small compared to my old iron. The iron is extremely stable when sitting vertically, thanks to a wide heel bar; I could bump the ironing board pretty hard without the iron falling over.

EASE OF MAINTENANCE: Has easy to use "self clean" feature -- viz., flushing water through the iron's holes. Otherwise, no maintenance needed.

EASE OF STORAGE: Iron has a useful "heel" around which you can wrap the cord for storage. It keeps the rubber cord away from the iron's heated plate, so that the cord can be safely stored even while the plate is still hot.

RELIABILITY (as of Oct 09). After 2 years of solid use, the iron has held up well with only one problem. After Year 1, the sprayer no longer sprayed out water in a nice, diffuse spray. Over time, the nozzle must have clogged up because now the water comes out in a narrow squirt. I have tried using a pin and vinegar to clean the nozzle, but to no avail. (In my town, we have hard water. Had we filled the iron with bottled, distilled water -- or if my town had soft water -- perhaps I would not be having the problem.)

OVERALL CONCLUSION: At under $50, it's a bargain. It performs well and is easy to use. I will update periodically for reliability. I'm mostly concerned that the iron depends on an LED display, so you'll have to hope the LED does not fail before the iron otherwise breaks.