Loved the Old Style
Pros:
The '06 model works great, all the way around.
Cons:
Two units bought in late '07 did not work at all.
The Bottom Line:
I gave it three stars because I love, love, love the older version of this product, but I don't recommend the new-and-unimproved version currently in stores.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I bought my first Crane penguin humidifier in late 2006/early 2007 when my son was newborn. It was - and still is - great! So great, in fact, that I recently bought a second one just like it for our master bedroom, penguin design and all. But the company has made some changes to the product's design, and my experience with the new version was not positive. We bought and quickly returned two new humidifiers, the first of which did not work and the second of which quit working after the first use.
First I'll offer a comparison of the old to the new. On the old model, you fill the water compartment by removing the penguin's head; grabbing it by a handle; flipping it over, where you find a second handle; unscrewing a cap; and filling it up. On the new model, that second handle is missing, which makes it very awkward to flip over and fill the tank - I couldn't do it without making a mess. The dial that controls the mist level also changed. On the old model, we keep the dial at the lowest possible level, and a nice, steady, thin stream of mist comes out (appropriate for my son's small room). On the new model, we had to turn the dial at least two-thirds of the way up to get any mist at all.
Now for the problems:
I noticed when I pulled the first new unit I bought out of the package that it made a rattling sound. When I filled it and turned it on, it made a strange sizzling or hissing sound and would not produce mist. When that unit did not work, I exchanged it for another one, thinking the defect was a fluke. And the first time I used the second new unit, it worked - it put out a steady stream of mist and operated quietly. I used it for maybe two nights, then dumped the old water out and refilled the tank. When I did that, something must have come loose inside the unit, because it began rattling like the first unit I bought. And when I put the parts together and turned it on, it too made the hissing sound, and it no longer worked.
Maybe I did something wrong, because, I admit, I didn't read the owner's manual on the new units since I had been using a humidifier that looks identical to the new ones for more than a year. But I'm not willing to try my luck on a third new humidifier. My question is: Why did the company make changes to a product that worked so well?
