Boils well. Lid can be tricky to replace.

The stainless steel design looks better than some of the white plastic kettles. [I should point out that currently (May 2006) Epinions is showing the wrong photo - they are showing the black model not the brushed stainless model which has a black handle.] However this does have a safety implication - the body of this one gets hot (like a saucepan would). With a plastic kettle you can touch the body to check whether you remembered to boil the water. With a metal kettle, you have to be more careful if you touch the kettle.

The kettle can rotate on the circular base - so you do not have to place at in a specific angle. That's a nice convenience, as are the dual water level indicators. One on each side means that left-handed and right-handed users can position the kettle as they desire.

The max fill level is 6 and a half cups and the minimum is 2 cups. That's uneconomic for your electricity bill if you drink alone as you have to heat two cups when you only want one. Our previous kettle had a 1-cup minimum.

The lid mechanism is somewhat over-engineered. When the lid is inserted and rotated into the locked position, a plastic tab is projected automatically to block the pouring spout. Presumably the idea was to reduce steam and heat loss. However it can be annoying, as it sometimes pops out when you are in the process of inserting or removing the lid, and that makes it fiddly to get the lid back in place. Considering that this kettle is relatively expensive, I would have expected a better design than this.

Heating the max amount of water took 5 to 6 minutes in my test.

The FLF3 appears to be the new version of the FLF2 which can still be purchased. I've not been able to find any difference between these two models.