Review of The Sharper Image Select-A-Temp 1.7L Stainless Steel Cordless

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I've had a Breville BKE820XL Variable-Temperature Kettle for over a year now. Its brilliant design has made it my favorite appliance, a pleasure to use every time I make a cup of tea. So when I got the chance to try out the Sharper Image Select-A-Temp, I thought I'd take the opportunity to compare the two. Here's a breakdown:

Interface: With the Breville, you hit one of five temperature buttons (from Green Tea up to Boiling), then hit start. The button lights up, and you can tell even from across the room what state the kettle is in--is it heating up? Has it finished? If so, is the water still hot enough? It also provides audible feedback, beeps that are loud enough to hear from the next room but not so loud as to be irritating. The Sharper Image uses a small digital display on the handle. A blinking icon tells you that the kettle is boiling. There is no audible feedback beyond the water itself. There's no indication of what the current temperature of the water is.

Features: Both have a "hold temp" feature for when you want to keep the water at the temperature you heated it to, though the Breville's way of doing this is much more intuitive. The Sharper Image also offers an "overboil" feature that makes it keep going for a few minutes after hitting 212°, and you can heat water at any 10-degree interval from 110° up to 212° (the Breville's minimum is 175° for green tea). The lower temperatures might be useful for, say, making hot cocoa for small children.

Details: The Breville has a large lid that opens fully and smoothly at the press of a button located within thumb's reach of the handle, making refilling a breeze. The Sharper Image has a smaller lid with a release button on it, which feels clumsy; worse, it opens at an angle, so refilling the kettle in a sink requires you to keep the kettle tilted.

Looks: Comparable. Both fit well in a modern kitchen, with their abundance of stainless steel. Both have roughly the same footprint. The only cheap-looking part of the Sharper Image kettle is the oversized handle with its awkward buttons.

Performance: Comparable. In my stopwatch test, both took about 4:45 to boil 1L of water.

Warranty: Comparable. Both come with 1 year of coverage.

Price: The one area where the Sharper Image kettle has an advantage, at half the price of the Breville. You get what you pay for.

In short, what we have here are two kettles which both do the same thing (heat water to various temperatures, quickly); but while one is a paragon is appliance design, the other feels clunky and dated. One takes two easy button presses to heat water to the desired temperature; the other can take several. One provides pleasant audible and visual feedback when it's done; the other just stops. Yes, the Breville is more expensive, but if you plan on using it every day, then it's worth every penny.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program This is a high-quality kettle. At 1500 watts it isn't under-powered like too many other kettles out there which means you get so save money because it will heat your water faster. Furthermore, because you can control the temperature of the water (you can set it to boil from anywhere between 110 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit) you can further save money on your electricity bills and/or ensure that the water is boiled just right for the kind of tea you're making. Add to that the fact that the kettle rotates on the power base, that its top opens up, making it easier to clean than many of its competitors makes this a very practical kettle.

My quibbles then don't have to do with the practicality but with its aesthetics. The handle is a bit chunky. Maybe it's that I have small hands but I find it a bit awkward to pick it up when it's full. Also, it doesn't keep water hot for as long as some of its competitors. (Unless of course you use the Warm Keeping Mode but that rather defeats the energy saving point.) The digital display also makes it somewhat hard to see when the kettle is on.

All in all, I would say this is a great kettle for someone who is very practical or very particular about their tea. Obviously it would be ideal for someone who is both! It may not be the right kettle for someone who prizes elegance above all in her kitchen though.

Personally, I quite like it and recommend it.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I compared this kettle by lining it up with our household's two other electric kettles: my unbreakable workhorse Braun and the amusingly-psychedelic Saeco.

First the speed test: I measured 32 oz of cold tapwater into each. I ran them consecutively using the same electrical outlet: Braun 4:58; Sharper Image 5:30, Saeco 5:00. For serial tea-making (us Brits have to work harder at assembling our daily caffeine dose), the Saeco is my favourite because it will keep water warm for two hours, compared to 30 min for the Sharper Image. Is that environmentally bad? Not if it's heating season, when any source of heat inside the house is about as green as any other except for wood or solar.

[Note: For longevity of the unit, I recommend always boiling slightly more water than you need. If you completely empty an only-just-boiled kettle, the heating element, though turned off, will continue to heat the kettle well past boiling, and perhaps past the design limits of the various plastics.]

The temperature-holding function works well, holding temperature close to desired. The Saeco temperature-holding function is simpler to use, but the Sharper Image is more fine-grained, offering 10F increments.

All three are difficult to fill because the lids don't open far enough, for no obvious reason at all. The Sharper Image loses a star because it has no indicator light and is purely right-handed, with the fill window only on the left side. That is annoying even if you are right-handed.

It loses another star for now because the fit and finish are slightly shoddy, with visible manufacturing gouges and irregularities, and the injection-moulded plastic looks like something from the pre-CAD 1970s, with a marred surface showing visible weld lines, cavities, and flash-marks (Sharper Image! Google 'finite-element-analysis software'). It may lose another star over time because the poor finish doesn't speak well to long-term reliability.

For now, though, it's just my least favourite of the three.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I lived in England for a while in the late 90s, and of course England is known for their tea drinkers. I had never used or even seen an electric kettle before, and had only used the old fashioned type you fill with water and put on a stove eye to use. In England, I was told that while most homes owned a television, EVERY home owned a kettle. So I bought one. And it boiled the water in 30 seconds. When I moved back to America, I had to search hard to find an electric kettle. Even Amazon only had one to offer, which I bought, but it couldn't begin to compare to the kettle I used in England. Of course kettles in America take much longer to boil due to the voltage differences, but otherwise the features are just as good.

Since then, electric kettles have become much more popular here and there are many sizes and types available. I've tried many and have been left disappointed, but finally found the Adagio UtiliTEA kettle with variable temperature, which I'll use to compare the Sharper Image kettle. Temperature control is important to me because green tea and black tea or coffee require different temperatures for optimum flavor. I've used and loved this kettle for a few years.

Now I've tried the Sharper Image kettle and I'm impressed! It's larger than my Adagio and offers multiple functions. My Adagio holds 30oz of water, while the Sharper Image kettle holds 57oz. Selecting the correct temperature is easy with the arrow buttons. You can push the Function button and choose to keep the water warm, which is helpful and not an option with the Adagio kettle.

I filled both kettles with 3 cups of very cold water and turned them on at the same time, with temps set to 212 degrees. Both came to a boil in almost the same time, with the Adagio reaching boiling point about 15 seconds sooner.

I only have two complaints. I wish there was a red indicator light to let me know it's doing what it should do. The digital indicator isn't lit and can be hard to see without the right lighting. I might not always want to turn the lights on in the wee hours of the morning. I also wish the kettle were entirely stainless steel instead of including some plastic interior parts. Since the manual does not state that the plastic is free of BPA, then it's safe to assume otherwise. I have the same complaint about the Adagio kettle.

I'm happy with the features and performance of this kettle and can definitely recommend it.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I'm an obsessive tea drinker, so an electric kettle is sort of an essential gadget for meit's my version of a coffee maker.

I've had the Adagio Teas 3 UtiliTEA Variable-Temperature 30-Ounce Electric Kettle for a few years now and it's done nicely, although it doesn't hold a ton of water and the temperatures can vary.

The Sharper Image one is slickit's got a nice profile, boils water very quickly, and the "programmable" features are nice. But what wins it for me is the fact it keeps the water at temperature for about half an hourI often have two cups of tea in the morning and two in the afternoon and it's so lovely to be able to go into the kitchen and immediately get another cup of tea steeping right after I finish the first without waiting for water to boil again. It's also great for cookingsometimes when we're making risotto or rice or whatever, we boil some water in the kettle just in case we need a little extra for the cooking pot. The fact it keep the water HOT means we can just pour it in when we need it. Makes life so much easier that way.

Now if only someone would make a tea mug (not a warmer...) that keeps the tea piping hot for half an hour....