As much as I wish an iron weren't a necessity in my house, sadly it is! So when my old iron gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago, I had to hotfoot it to town to fork out some of my hard earned money on a new one... not my most exciting purchase of the year I have to admit. I refuse to pay a lot for an iron because I do seem to break them quite a lot, and I find that the more expensive ones aren't really any better to be honest with you. I found this particular iron in my local branch of Robert Dyas, and I did buy it mainly because it's purple which is my favourite colour, but also because it was on a special offer price of £14.99 which was reasonable value I thought. So is the Russell Hobbs 15207 iron any good?!

The Russell Hobbs 15207 iron is what I would class as being a pretty basic iron. It doesn't have any fancy functions or pretty lights or anything, it just heats up and does the job of ironing your clothes pretty well. The bulk of the iron is white plastic, as most irons are, but has a purple middle and the top of the handle is purple also. Aesthetically, it's a good iron, and I really do love the fact it's purple. These things make a difference when you have to use it virtually every day! It has a good length power lead, although it is shorter than the one for my previous iron so I have to remember to place my ironing board closer to the socket in the wall, but it's long enough to enable you to iron freely. It does have an orange light for heating purposes, and when the light goes out, the iron is at temperature - again, pretty standard.

In terms of filling with water, I find it easy to fill although the hole in which to pour the water is completely flush with the handle, so you have to take care not to spill it. You only get a very small beaker with it so I do find myself resorting to my pyrex jug to fill it up fully otherwise I spend half the time filling the iron up with water, especially when I have a big pile of ironing to do. I do find the water capacity to be fairly small actually, and when using constant steam, it does seem to really eat the water up quickly which can be a bit of a pain, but not a major issue I suppose. The other issue with water is the fact that the purple plastic isn't as see-through as it could be and sometimes I struggle to see the water level and sometimes run out of water without realising as it isn't obvious when you look at it. As well as the steam, it also features a mist spray, so that you can wet those stronger creases, and I find this is good, a gentle mist that doesn't drench the clothes too heavily but allows enough water out to make the creases damp.

For heat settings, there are just 3 of them, all marked with dots from 1-3, with 3 being the hottest temperature. I find most clothes are fine on the second setting, and for thicker items like jeans and jumpers, I whack it up to number 3 which gives you much stronger steam too. It's easy to rotate the dial which is located on the purple middle bit of the iron, and it moves nicely around. The steam itself also has 2 settings, normal steam and well, heavier steam I suppose. I tend to leave it on the heavier one but only because I like a lot of steam to make the ironing as easy as possible! This is located at the top of the handle, and again easy to adjust with a sliding switch. So overall, the functions are really good, well located and I'm happy so far.

The iron features a non-stick soleplate, which is really important as you don't want it sticking to all your clothes and ruining them. It's a dark grey colour, and I find it glides over all fabrics really well and easily, I never have to force it across my clothes at all. It doesn't seem to have got dirty either, aside from a strange sticky black patch which I think may have been when I rested it against something, but I put the iron to warm and used a soapy sponge and it soon came off, leaving no sign it was there at all. The steam works well as you're ironing, but when you stand the iron up, you do get a really loud and huge burst of steam erupt from the iron, so do be aware of that. Other than that though, I've had no issues with using the iron day to day, and it never seems to struggle with whatever I'm ironing at the time.

I've had the iron about a month now so I think I'm fine to give it a full review, and I am really pleased with it. It was good value for money, it looks good and does the job I ask of it really well. My only issues have to do with the water to be honest - the fact it's a bit hard to gauge the water level, and also filling it with the ridiculously small jug, but as I said, I substitute that with a pyrex jug so I can fill it full each time. I haven't found any limescale build in the iron, and the hotplate looks as good as the day I bought it. It does apparently have a self-cleaning function so maybe that's something to do with it?! I'm very impressed with this basic Russell Hobbs iron, and would certainly purchase from this brand again. I'd also recommend this iron for anyone who needs a basic iron which works well. Oh, and one more niggle... you can't wind the cord around the base of the iron like you could with my old one, so it's a bit of a pain to store, but other than that, it's great!

The iron is currently available on Amazon.co.uk for juts £14 which is good value.
Power: 2200W

Thank you for reading.