Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNo problems yet
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2016
A slow cooker is a great traditional wedding gift, and eight years ago we were given an official "crock pot". It was one of the high end 5qt ones that came with a little brother warming pot, high/low timer, and of course the fancy name. It has served us well, and could continue to serve in some capacity, but one of the handles broke to pieces, and the other has cracked.
Looking for a new slow cooker, the handles were very important to me. Nobody wants to be carrying around a days worth of food to have one of the cheap plastic handles fall apart moments after pulling from the back end of the car (a second time). Unfortunately, the actual handles on this slow cooker don't quite do the images justice.
The handles look robust, which is why I picked this model over a couple others in the same class. The locking lid is a cool genius feature, and the spoon holder on top is a neat little gimmick. The temperature probe falls into about the same category of gimmick - I'm not sure we will ever use it. Back to the handles, they just don't quite cut it. Every time I lift the cooker by the handles with some kind of load inside, I can feel the exterior sheet metal flex a bit. How good a hold do the rivets really have? How much flexing before the beautiful heavy handles just pop right off? So that's one star down. The handles look so good in glamour shots, but inspire no confidence in use.
The second star off comes from the lid locks. Again, no problem so far, but the tiny little plastic nubs on the lid that secure the locks do not look long for this world. It won't mean end of life when one of them snaps off, but I don't believe they are designed to last a lifetime. It takes great willpower not to play with the locks, snapping them on, and off. On, and off. On, and off. Hours - on, and off. But I restrain myself, and give anyone else who touches them a dirty look, and a growl. Not on my watch! Locking is for loading and traveling only.
All that out of the way - the cooker works fine. Just this morning we dropped in some pork, and had pork ready for pancit tonight. Since July we have used it a handful of times, and it has performed well so far. No timer problems, or overheating, or underheating, or whatever heating - excepting what we have told it to do. Basic controls are easy to set and use, and it is attractive, as well as roomy. Long term outlook - not rosy - but for now it is working as advertised.
Ask me in a year or two and we'll see if it has withstood the tests of time in a growing household.
