Appliance Reviews

CAVEAT EMPTOR. While my jet stream oven was great while it lasted, the motor or "control arm" for it BROKE less than a month after the 1 yr. warranty expired-- and this with only very moderate use during that year, maybe 3 or 4 times a week. When I called Nesco, I was told that one year's life expectancy was about "normal" for small appliances, which basically meant that they don't expect their product to outlast the warranty. There was nothing I could do short of buying an entirely new oven (you can't buy a replacement "control arm"). How many of us would willingly spend $130 for an appliance whose manufacturer thinks this way? My GE microwave had a 1 yr warranty, too, but it's been working over 10 years without incident. I would advise all those who are willing to spend $130 on a disposable item to go ahead. Everyone else should wait until they offer an extended warranty.

I should have taken the advice of all of the negative reviews, but I figured that the average person treats their appliances with so little respect, that most of the problems they had were probably their own fault.

We went ahead and bought a Jet-Stream Oven from Amazon and it got here much sooner than we thought. Amazon is great. We had such high hopes for the Jet-Stream Oven, but the various things we cooked in it didn't taste any better than cooking it in a regular oven and it took much longer to cook than expected.

The Jet-Stream Oven was a disappointment, but since it's much easier to clean than an oven, doesn't heat up the whole house, and doesn't stink up the place, we thought it was still worth the money. Then on the 5th day, it just stopped working. The display light went out, it was dead. We treated that thing gently too.

I was worried by all of the reports about the plastic cracking, but I didn't even expect it would die on us in less than a week. We only used it a few times, so it wasn't overworked. We were shocked, but at least Amazon sent us a free shipping label by e-mail, and it's now on the way back to them. Amazon said it might take a couple of weeks before we get our money refunded, but that's not so bad. At least we are getting our money back.

Before you buy the Jet-Stream Oven or any other product, make sure you read through the reviews and don't discount them. I know there are some negative reviews about various products sold by Amazon that look suspicious as if they are employees of a rival company or they are ham-handed oafs that destroy everything they touch, but those reviews are pretty easy to weed out. In this case, it seems like the Jet-Stream Oven won't be worth the money until Nesco makes more improvements to it. The Jet-Stream Oven is a great idea though and I hope Nesco fixes the problems before their reputation gets so damaged that they won't be able to recover no matter how much they improve the product in the future.

I bought the Jet-Stream Oven about two weeks ago and am generally pleased with its performance. I'm glad that the 4000 has a direct-drive motor that avoids the problems with their previous model, the 1500, that was plagued with drive belt failures. My intent was to replace an old Welbilt Convection Oven that has lasted almost 10 years, except that the control knob fell off years ago and I have to use a butter knife to turn it on and off (but then, that's another review). On the plus side, it does indeed do things like cook fish sticks in 8-9 minutes versus 30 minutes in a standard oven and it cooks a frozen pizza in 12 minutes instead of 25-30 minutes. On the down side, the fan is so powerful that it rips pepperoni and sausage off of the surface of a frozen pizza and eventually throws them onto the base tray where they get burned after they are thrown, loudly, all over the interior. And, don't even think about putting toast or a bagel in this oven; anything that isn't heavy is thrown all over the oven and ricochets off the fan and heating element while it cooks (even on low fan speed). So, yes it does cook heavier foods much faster than even a convection oven, but don't even think about putting bagels, frozen waffles, or anything lighter than chicken into in. Overall, and this is based on two weeks of use, it's just acceptable. Beware of high prices for any accessories. Accept it for what it is and don't expect to cook anything taller than 2-3 inches without expensive accessories and turn up the TV when you cook: this thing is LOUD.

It's been 3 weeks and nothing! The website tells me that the order has been processed and that it has yet to ship!

One would think that A.com could let you know if it is in stock or not! Hopefully, I can find my way through this byzantine mess of a website to be able to contact a living person rather than some useless FAQ page....

We bought this toaster oven from Amazon about 6 months ago. We were looking for something that could handle more than a standard toaster but not as complex as a lot of the other toaster ovens (which could practically replace your full sized oven). This space saving design looked ideal. My initial disappointment came when I realized that there wasn't any temperature setting, just settings to specify how many of the heating elements you want used. Granted, this was probably somewhere in the description and I just failed to absorb that, but it just seems that a toaster oven should have more precise temperature settings. Nonetheless, if you work with it you can sort out how long to cook small items (e.g. french fries) and it does toast very well. But, I have to give it a low rating because the elements only intermittently turn on after only 6 months of low level use. Spend your money more wisely on a traditionally, high rated brand rather than this model which was a great concept that just does not perform.

Innovative out of the box design...good quality (so far), this new generation toaster oven exceeds my expectations. This "Super Toasty - Bagel Best" does indeed toast bagels excellently as well as bread, etc.

Design saves counter space and offers more flexibility in heating things up. Only drawback: no temperature control. Heating is done by timer so you go by the timer times in the guide and go with that. Also you have a lot of glass so if you see something getting too brown you can quickly turn it off.

Contrary to other reviews, I think it toasts just fine, thank you.

This product is the biggest disappointment. The first one we had to return to the mfg. because the motor did not work, at our own expense. Then the large barrel would not press out the cookie dough and the small barrel was slightly better. Save your money and make cookies the old way.

Nice idea, especially with two barrel sizes, but it simply doesn't work. Very little power, and the pusher does not push down evenly. It kind of wobbles down, which means the dough is not dispersed evenly.

I've had another press for many years, but I couldn't get to it and had cravings for some Spritz cookies. So... I went out and bought this cookie press and to my amazement was very impressed with all the additional accessories it came with. The press worked beautifully (I've only used the small barrel so far.) I was concerned that it was battery operated, my last one was a plug in model. But it is nice not to be limited to working near a plug. We had no problems with the unit, it worked quite nicely. I'm looking forward to trying out some of the accessory attachments in the future. I would definitely recommend this press to anyone looking to buy a cookie press.

I bought this "Smoothie Bar Blender and Server" and used it about 15 times before the plastic dispenser cracked making the whole thing unuseable. I was very careful with it, washing it by hand - not putting it in the dishwasher - because I thought it looked fragile (cheap) when I first opened the box. Don't waste your money on this item.

You know that infomercial for these things (The one where they are knocking the blender)? That guy in the infomercial is way too excited about the spigot. I have had this thing for almost two months and I haven't used that thing once. It is actually a pain(...)to clean it out, even though I don't use it. I make a lot of smoothies and protein shakes and both are WAY to thick to get through that little spigot.

The good:
Heavy blades.
700 watt motor.
And if you're going to use the spigot, there is actually pretty good clearence from the drip plate.

"The good" presupposes a "bad", and there really isn't anything bad about it other than the minor difficulty of cleaning out the spigot. It works as an awesome blender, but if you want to make anything thicker than water, a blender is all that it is.

I've had this machine for about a week, and it's getting the job done. This is my second smoothie blender. The first (another brand) gave out rather quickly. At $30 if this one dies in two months I'll still feel like I got my money's worth.

Strong points:
Extremely good price.
Heavy blades.
A wide pitcher facilitates an even mix with odd shaped ingredients.
Strong 700 watt motor.
The spigot is high enough from the drip plate to allow a 24oz bar glass under it.

Weak points:
The power buttons are on the side, and not in a recessed area. I was pushing the machine to the back of the kitchen counter and bumped the pulse switch against a bowl, spinning the blades and sending the stir stick flying across the room.
The drip tray screen vibrates off while the machine is running. The little clips that are meant to hold it just don't get the job done.
The spigot is a little narrow making it very slow to pour a thick beverage. More often than not, I just pour from the pitcher mouth.

So, there you have it. Not perfect, but a fantastic value for $30. Just be careful of those darn buttons!

This re-conditioned item broke after I used it once. (There is a reason it's so cheap.) Amazon has a great returns policy though, thank god.

OK, so what do you expect for $10? Well, a unit that does not MAKE YOU DEAF when you use it. The decibels this thing puts out are totally OFFENSIVE to my ears, I cannot believe that a product that sounds like this would be sold by any company. I called Cusinart and let them hear my unit - they then let me hear one they had over there - the both sounded the same, very loud and obnoxious. My ears are still ringing almost 5 minutes after doing the demo for them on the phone. So now unless I want to spend $7 to ship it back to Amazon to get my $10 back, I just take the loss. :-( I don't think I will consider Cusinart products again in the future.

this small appliance is incredibly handy for small food processor jobs. it is very powerful, easy to use, and fast. it does take a bit of practice to get used to protocols, including beginning with the processing of dry items, and adding liquid materials toward the end of processing. it is great for salad dressings, special dips and sauces, and the like.

it does not replace the full size processor for any sort of big job. it has only one speed, although its handy blade can turn both directions for a different effect.

a real bargain for very small households, and those who like to fancy up otherwise dull presentations.

I bought this blender a couple of years ago, and still use it because its all I've got. I want to upgrade! I use it about once every 2 weeks. It is fine for the most basic uses, but honestly all those buttons are joke - horrible to keep clean, and there is no difference between any of the speeds. And the food doesn't drop down properly, only the stuff at the bottom gets blended. And if there isn't lots of liquid in there, it doesn't blend at all. I would not recommend it to anyone.

My parents still have an Oster blender that's 30 years old and still works perfectly. But Oster blenders nowadays come with cheap motors that smoke the first time they run for more than 15 seconds and burn out on either the first or second batch of daquiries. Maybe it's because Osters are now made in Mexico; I don't know. What I do know is that I will never waste good money on an Oster blender again. The most recent replacement blender Oster sent me burned out five minutes ago, and you can bet I'm p.o.'d. I don't want another replacement - I want my money back.

This is the best blender I have ever purchased. AND it is not noisy at all.

No adapter and absolute no information in the package on where to get one, or even whether it's safe to use one. Complete rip-off.

The first time I used this product it shorted out the lighter in my car. The plug for the lighter did not fit properly, overheated and shorted the system. The refrigerator never cooled. Additionally, the refrigerator hold much less than you would think.

This cooler keeps things cold, but it is better to think of it as a "permanent" thermos. In other words, it is extremely slow to actually cool things. A 6-pack of room-temperature soft drinks will take 24-30 hours to get really cold. This unit will cool considerably below ambient temperatures, even to 32 degrees -- better than most of the units on the market, because it is so small inside, but uses the same capacity thermoelectric element. It does make noise with the cooling fan whirring all the time. It's about like a loud computer fan. As to adapters: thermoelectric elements do not function properly if there is electrical noise. Most cheap transformers do not in fact make a "clean" power flow. This will significantly reduce the efficiency of this refrigerator, which would mean less cooling. So it may be best to get the adapter from the manufacturer, not go to eBay or such sources. You can tell the difference in the car, using battery power this unit will show the best performance it is capable of.

You also need several inches of air space around the unit for proper operation.

If you need more storage than a 6 pack, or need to actually cool things down, keep in mind that this is a really light-duty unit. You'll be happier with a 1.6 cu. ft. refrigerator if you have the room. But this will work okay if nothing larger would be allowed in your office.

The thermoelectric cooling principle was discovered well over 100 years ago, and has been used extensively by NASA. Basically if you put hot Plutonium against one side of the thermoelectric element, electricity will flow. Whether cooling or making electricity, these circuits are only about 10% efficient. A compressor-type refrigerator is about 35% efficient. So, if you're using your employer's office power, don't worry about it, but if you use this at home, at 48 watts continuously, it will use about $25 a year for power. That is a lot of juice for a little bit of cooling.

This toaster was perfect for the space I had. Too bad it didn't keep working. First the toast started to brown unevenly, then the slide thru feature failed. There is NO way to get it out but to dig it out - or turn it upside down. I only had it for about 4 months before we had to invest in a different toaster.

I knew it was to good to be true.
It did not release the toast into the tray when it was done.
I also noticed in the manuel, it said to trim the edges of the bread before inserting in toaster. Who has time to do that?
Very disappointing product.

i give this unique TOaSter 4 stars, but im not very picky. as soon as i saw the ad with eggos cascading down the pristine white tray, i was in luv. the machine took me back to my college days when, super fit and carefree, i had time to wait for an english muffin to coast its way down the giant antiquated slide-thru commercial toaster we had in the student cafeteria. the real thing was stainless steel and cud handle about ten slices of bread at a time. unlike the west bend, designed for residential use, i think the pieces mustve made their way down by gravity alone. mebbe the moisture in the untoasted bread helped it adhere to the chamber and get the proper exposure to the hot coils, much the same way as a sweaty bottom makes a kid stick to a park slide. as the bread toasted and dried out, it started a slow decline to the bottom against a gently sloping metal waterfall. its a lot like waiting for your luggage to show up in the airport carousel. half the suspense was vying with the other students for the slice that was yours--hopefully it was the one that was done! the west bend operates on a wire bread basket that springs open at the selected time, but like the real thing, it tends to take somewhat longer to toast than a standard pop-up toaster--particularly for fresh bread--probably cuz the slot is wide to accept thicker items such as BAgeLs and the case is heat-resistent plastic that can get damaged by intense heat. so far im satisfied with its performance. even if it has shortcomings, the sleek designer appearance and professional concept cant be beat. it actually makes toasting fun and rather upper-class. just butta that right on the tray, tah, tah! i predict it will be a collectors item one day.

I purchased this for Christmas 2003 from Williams-Sonoma (color: tangerine). While the product description states "The heavy lid does all the work for you, applying enough pressure to extract maximum juice", the recipient of my gift found that the Orange-X Ojex Household Juicer requires a substantial amount of pressure be applied by the user before juice is extracted. The disappointed recipient has also informed me that this item is a basic juicer with little or no advantages over other mechanical juicers. She will be returning this item shortly.

This is my second juicer. I had been using a Krups electric for the past decade. I thought this would be better: fewer parts to clean; not made of plastic; less effort; etc. But there are some drawbacks. First, you have to pre-squish the 1/2 sliced orange on the juicer or it falls over to the side. Second, the shape of the juicing cone is a compromise. It doesn't do a thourough job of sqeezing the outer perimeter of the orange. Third, it puts so much pressure on the orange that it sqeezes the skin putting the bitter orange oil into your juice. The last two complaints would be universal in this type of machine. I mean with the electric Krups, you can move the orange all around the spinning juicer to extract all the juice and you can't squeeze it hard enough to extract oil from the skin.

Finally, the juicer does not open up enough to easily accommodate a grapefruit. You can get one in there but you are going to lose juice as it scrapes along the outside of the juicer.

It's convenient, it works, it isn't perfect. Despite my concerns, I haven't used the electric one since this arrived two months ago.

We bought this juicer to replace an electric unit. The OJex is LOADED with features, easy to clean componets, sucction cups for stability, rugged cast iron construction, and stainless steel funnel. My 10 year old daughter uses it and drinks more juice than ever before.

If there every was a piece of junk made this is it....I have had two of these overpriced and under engineered ovens and both suffered the same failure with in a month of taking them out of the box as new. The drive belt will not work past a month. I have written the president of the company. He said his company would not "make junk" but he refused to repair my ovens at his cost: That's two ovens at his cost...refered me to a repair man "in my area" where I could get it repair at my cost...Mind you this is only a couple of weeks out of the box... The repair man wanted more to repair the thing than it was worth when new. For some unknown head failure on my own part I bought the second oven with the same failure of the belt not more than a month later having used it only 3 or 4 times.
If those of you are intrested in this oven please take time to read of the failure, not only of my oven but other people who have experienced the same failures as myself, time and time again with this machine.
This is the important message I want to leave hereon: In so far that the belt breaks on this machine the fan does not turn. Thus when the fan does not turn there is a heat build up in the unit within seconds of the belt failure. This heat build up is catostrophic with in seconds. It is enough heat in fact cause combustion of the surrounding plastic and fire insues within seconds of belt failure. (The drive belt is designed to take the heat away from the heating element and shower this heated air into the oven and thus the food inside the oven. This raises concerns that children should definately not be allowed to use this JS 1500 Nesco oven at all. A child simply will not be alert enough to unplug the unit before meltdown/fire. As for the adults, it would be huge danger to your house to leave this unit any length of time on your counter top to say leave the room to take a shower or leave the room for more than 15 seconds. I am now considering writing the US goverment of my concerns of safety hazards of this Nesco Jet Stream oven.
My advice Don't even think about buying it or any thing like it from NESCO until this design flaw is corrected.
They will not correct it because of the bottom line...Profit will be touched....It will take law suit, death or court order to get this product off the market.
Lend me your ears...This product is dangerous....Do not bring it in your house.

I have owned three of these ovens first one lasted about three years of two or three times a week use before plastic hinged area cracked. Next one had belt break and repaired it with part from old one still only got 6 months total of use before broke again. Most resent one worked for three weeks then belt broke.
I really like the way it cooks is the main reason I rate it as well as I do, but the newer 1500 models seem to break too fast to get your moneys worth from it. Also they are kind of hard to clean well. I'll probably be a sucker and buy the new 4000T maybe the direct drive motor set up will improve the durablity issues.

I love cooking with them too but there seems to be a problem with belts breaking. I have owned about 5 of them and maybe get 2 hours use before belt breaks. I have just found out there is a belt that can be replace after I had discarded the other 4. I hope that there new 4000 or 4500 will have corrected tis problem..