Great hand mixer

Very pleased with my purchase, it looks and feels good and works a treat, easy to store with cable rewind and plug clips into utensil holes;

Great machine...

This machine is light and practical and you can immediately tell the build quality is high. This is worth the extra cash in my oppinion.
Even when you turn the machine on you can actually 'hear' the fact it's a professional machine - the motor sounds very sturdy and at no point do you feel like it's being pushed.
Stow away cord is great - but I think most of the mixers have this these days. All the attachments you're likely to ever need come as standard.
So unless you're planning on spending big bucks on one of those super serious Kitchen Aid stand mixers, I can highly recommend this one!

Bargain!!

My absolute prized posession!! If my house was on fire i would grab this first. A bargain in comparison to the Kitchen Aid and with the exception of not being able to use attachments with it, definately up to the same standard.

Disappointed

I needed a hand mixer but didn't want a very heavy one, this one appealed so I sent for it. The second time I used it I thought it wasn't beating very well so stopped it and saw that a weld had broken on one of the beaters. I phoned Russell Hobbs to get a replacement but they said that there were no spares for the mixer, so presumably the whole machine is thrown away if there is a faulty part!

My initial impression is that the speed control is over complicated and the beater ejection button could be more precise but I may change my mind when I have had more practise with the replacement.

The Amazon replacement service was brilliant; as soon as I asked for a replacement I was directed to the necessary paperwork which I printed off and used in sending back the old mixer. The new one arrived in two working days just before Christmas. Amazing! Thank you Amazon.

I am not impressed with Russell Hobbs attitude to replacement parts, I had hoped we were moving away from a throw away culture to help the planet.

Do you always get what you pay for anymore?

I'm on my second mixer! I was really impressed by the appearance of my mixer when it arrived-heavy, good looks, easy to hold, retractable cable, powerful motor. In use, initially at least, it was brilliant except that although there are six settings, anything over setting 3 seems the same - powerful. This is a minor thing. After 3 months, the beaters stopped rotating during usage even though the motor continued to work. The machine was replaced and after a year,the same fault has developed in the machine. I am really disappointed because I love using the machine but do not have enough faith in it now to buy another but there don't appear to be any other reasonable quality hand mixers in the UK which are tough enough for weekly use (twice a week). Sorry Dualit, but I don't think that this is too much to ask.

Leaks

Our machine quickly developed a leak around the seal at the base of the jug which gradually got worse. You can buy 3 replacement seal from Kenwood for £4 PLUS £4.75 POSTAGE. Presumably the seals would go in a second class envelope!!!
Eventually, our appliance also leaked from the seal around the spindle and had to be consigned to the bin.

Great smoothie maker!!

This is a great smoothie maker because it is simple to use with very little to set up. It is really easy to clean and the dispenser tap works perfectly, allowing all the bits and fibre through- just the way a real smoothie should be.

Works well but does not last

Please note my machine was earlier model SHM1 but similar spec.

From new works well and mixes/beats medium amounts (small amounts ie couple of eggs or 1/4 pint cream probably more suited to do simply by hand whisk - can remove this mixer and use by hand for small amounts), speed adjustments all OK and no problem beating/mixing with rotating bowl, seems to work well, doesn't make a mess, stays in bowl if speed correctly set, power adequate - but not overly powerful (therefore not suitable for larger amounts of mixture). Apart from comment below should have 4 stars.

Only problem (AND THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM) after a couple of years with only very light occasional use, the gear wheels driving the beaters/mixers stripped. This machine had never been used for larger amounts and probably had less than 30 uses in 2 years. When I ttok it apart to see what the problem was, I found that the gear wheels driving the spindles were made of plastic and one was almost stripped completely, most teeth 80% gone on gear wheel and the other side gear was halfway worn down. Contacted Breville about this and asked for replacement gear wheels (at least I could simply replace these gear wheels and machine would be OK for another year or two), however, Breville unable to supply parts as changed to new model SMH2!!!! Looking at the SMH2, there doesn't seem to be any difference - but MAYBE the gear wheels are better made now - but I doubt it. Hence 2 stars only, as it is GUARANTEED not to last!!!

Nicest blender, but there's a lot we don't know

I usd to work in a kitchen and I got to know what good kit is all about. Here's my pre-purchase preview of this product.

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This thing looks great with its stainless steel clothes and its perfect waist and its understated controls, but there's so little info on this site that you are reduced to going elsewhere to find out that (a) the jug is glass (classy yes, but very breakable, and there are *no spares*) and (b) it can crush ice, or so it is said. Quite a few manufacturers say their blender can crush ice but they actually can't really do it, or they do it until the edge is off the blades two weeks after you get the thing.

But here is where I have my real problems buying this, much as I would like to on the basis of its looks.

(i) No push-rod. This is a rod that goes through the lid that can be used to push the ingredients down towards the blades. It is important because without an infinitely variable speed control with which to perform a slow start, or an automatic soft-start function, light, dryish ingredients will get kicked up onto the sides of the jug right at the outset of blending and stay there untouched by the blades. The only way to get them back down again is take the lid off and mess about with a wooden spoon and this is a pain because you may have to do it three or four times before everything gets mushed together enough to stay put. American blenders very often have push rods but not so here in the UK. Why? I suspect it is becuase they look odd and manufacturers are in the business of selling stuff, not troubling people with useful but poorly understood tools.

(ii) Are the blades are set low enough? A lot of belnders have the blades set too high and, as a result, heavy, sticky food, which is not part of a liquid blend, gets stuck on the base of the jug under the blades and is never processed. The problem arises because manufactuers do not test blenders with a wide variety of ingredients.

(iii) Are the seals sound? Very often the seals go on blenders and then they leak, sometimes right into the motor! Like I say, there are no spares for Breville blenders so the seals have to last. Do they?

(iv) does the jug locate easily and is the safety system unintrusive in normal use. Second only to appearance manufacturers are concerned to make their blenders safe. They put these two far above effectiveness and ease of use becuase of the high cost of claims. You have to sell a lot of blenders to pay off a £400k lawsuit, but nobody can prosecute you because your blender is a pain in the... to operate becuase of all the clumsy safety interlocks.

(v) Is the motor tough? In the US you can get blenders of 2000 Watts or more. In the UK we think a big blnder is 800W. This one is 600W, which is pretty weedy, so they question is, can it hack tough usage? Most of them can't. If you check out the reviews on Amazon you will find that the biggest problem with blenders, irrespective of price is that they fail - constantly - and the biggest cause of that is the motor.

The bottom line is that unless you buy a commercial unit you need a shovelful of luck when buying a blender, or you just have to face the fact that it is very unlikely to last and buy on that basis. Home blenders look great and they are as mostly pretty safe, but they do not usually work well and they almost never last.

As to this one, who knows? Any reviewer out there got the goods?

Even knowing all this I'll probably just spend the money anyway on the off-chance the thing is OK for a couple of years...

Hand blender - water trapped in lid

I have bought this blender, and it works wonderfully for baby food. However, when you wash the item, water gets stuck in the black top and stays there, there is no way of getting it out, and the water has now gone off and smells really horrible. this is obviously a design fault... can someone do anything about this. I love the blender, but the water getting in when washing is a real nightmare.

My Mother's Is 30+ Years Old and Still Going Strong

In this throw-away society it is nice to see there are a few things you can buy and keep for years. I love this mixer and use it almost everyday in preparing meals for my family. If you like to bake bread, make biscuits, etc...this is the one for you.

do not buy this item!!

The one star awarded is because it worked well for 3 weeks. After this, a vital part broke in half (tap retaining ring). I contacted R-H Customer (appalling)Service Dept to get a replacement part under warranty. This company's mantra is 'the customer is always wrong'. I was told that this part did not exist, although it was clearly shown on the user manual. I then sent the broken piece as evidence, and in a week, received a part back that does not even belong to that machine at all. I have since fashioned a locking ring from a brass threaded plumbing part, by machining it to fit.I seriously recommend that clients do not purchase this item unless they are competent DIY engineers. As for the'Customer Service Dept' - forget it - they are nothing less than a disgrace.

Looks good but not a great blender.

I haven't used mine very much but now after only six months the teeth on the drive mechanism have all broken off, rendering it useless. I also found it didn't grate things like parmesan cheese nearly fine enough, herbs were reduced to mush and the goblet tended to leak. Looks aren't everything and I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend this blender.