| Product: |
Swan Rapid Boil Kettle |
| Date: |
27/04/04 (982 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Boils quickly, large capacity, looks good
Disadvantages: Noisy! Very heavy when full
Ah yes, the time had come. My little banana yellow bouncing, boiling friend in the corner of the kitchen was signalling its swansong. In plain terms my kettle was about to die.
I?ve had it maybe, mmmm, two or three years I think. It was a Hinari Lifestyle (I wrote about it at the time!) kettle in a nice yellow colour for a price I could afford but, being fairly cheap and cheerful, it had its problems. It had always bounced about precariously when boiling, threateningly to somersault off the kitchen worktop, and in its final few months I could only get it to work by strategically levering it up with a teaspoon so that the connections on kettle and base would meet! You had to get the angle just right you know?..it was very technical.
Anyway, the novelty was wearing as thin as the kettle and I gradually came to terms with the fact that I would have to spend out on a new one after several months in denial. I?m on a tight budget so I have to shop around for these things which I hate spending money on anyway. My old kettle was £9.99 if I remember rightly and I was hoping to spend about the same again.
So it was research time. When I had the opportunity I looked around the shops locally ? Woolworths, Robert Dyas, Index, Argos, etc ? to get an idea of what was available. To be blunt the majority of those in my price range looked cheap and looked like they wouldn?t last long and so would be a false economy. I was after a cordless jug kettle and luckily they seem to be the most common type available so there was certainly plenty of choice ? but not that suited my pursestrings. So after a fruitless search offline and then turned to internet shopping. After searching a few retailers and bargain sites I turned back to my old faithful ? Ebay. I wanted to make sure I was buying a new, unused one and checked the feedback reputation of the sellers (very important!) of items I was interested in. Eventually I placed bids on three different kettles which caug
ht my eye and met my requirements, all starting at a low price which would obviously rise ? just how far was the matter in hand.
I struck lucky! The one I liked most ? the Swan Rapid Boil ? was the kettle I won with the highest bid. Including postage & packing I paid £10.80 for it ? according to most shops and catalogues it normally retails for between £19.99 and £24.99 depending where you go, of course. So it was a good buy either way!
A few days letter my new kettle arrived to usurp my old bouncy boiler. It looked very modern and classy ? a dark, gunmetal grey colour with a clear water level indicator, indicator light, 360 degree rotational base, lightweight and fitted plug of course. A very idiot-friendly instruction leaflet accompanied it. It has a maximum capacity of 1.8 litres, more than my old kettle, which is good considering the amount of coffee I get through in a day. Its minimum fill level is marked as 0.7 litres but it will function with no problem at about 0.5 litres if you want to boil just enough for one cup at a time (saves energy). There is an emergency cut out which acts if you attempt to boil the kettle when empty too.
So it was test time. Or rather time for an essential cup of coffee and to see how my new appliance peformed. I like the design. Although it?s the biggest kettle I?ve ever had I actually found it very easy to manoeuvre (I have weak wrists/hands). Unlike most kettles it does not have a full curved handle but an open one which points straight down and has finger grip shaping ? I found this very helpful. The 360 degree rotational base was handy too ? no more fiddling about to match up connections, you can just plonk it back on the base in any position. Its easy to fill with a flip open lid which reveals a large opening and a built in filter to skim off any limescale scum from the water on pouring. Its also quite mesmerising watching the water boiling and bubbling through the clear indicator panel! (See, a watc
hed kettle DOES boil!!)
It does boil pretty quickly compared to my old one (roughly half the time) although friends have commented that it?s quite noisy just before it switches off! That doesn?t bother me though. If you need to re-boil it for any reason it?s ready to leap into action again in 20 seconds.
Well, I think that pretty much covers all its features. Like all kettles to clean it you should not immerse it in water but wipe it clean inside and out and remember to de-scale it regularly if you don?t use anything that does for you along the way (using filtered water helps).
My verdict ? I?m very pleased with my bargain boiler. It looks good, works well, handles well and does the job, and that?s about all I require from a kettle really!
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