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10 Top-Rated Small Appliances for $50 or Less
With Christmas fast approaching, stores and online retailers are offering discounts and free shipping so there are bargains to be found. Fortunately, the experts in Consumer Reports’ labs are on the lookout for good deals all year long and have found some top-performing small appliances that cost $50 or less. Here are 10 to consider.
Cuisinart’s 3-cup chopper combines very good value with solid performance. It was particularly adept at chopping almonds and onions in our food processor tests, and at grating hard parmesan cheese. Pureeing of peas and carrots wasn’t quite what we measured with our recommended full-size machines, but the Cuisinart is still a top chopper in our Ratings.
Cuisinart’s 5-speed hand mixer had no trouble powering through stiff cookie dough in our mixer tests and it was very quick at whipping. We also like the well-priced mixer’s wire beaters, which are easier to clean than the traditional center-post variety. But this mixer is louder than other recommended models.
This 12-cup machine delivers great value and an even better cup of joe. The automatic drip machine gets the water hot enough to bring out the coffee’s full flavor, and we found it easy to set up, operate, and clean in our coffeemaker tests. Plus the spill-free carafe is helpful if you’re a bit clumsy before that first morning cup.
This skillet beat out models from All-Clad, Le Creuset, and Rachael Ray in our cookware tests. It’s superb at evenly heating food, say, for an omelet or frittata. Plus it’s easy to clean and shrugged off our tough durability test in which steel wool is rubbed over a pan up to 2,000 times.
Check Consumer Reports’ 2015 Holiday Guide for our picks of the best gifts, details on the latest deals, time-saving tips, and much more. And see our countdown calendar for top gift ideas for everyone on your list.
This two-slice toaster from Cuisinart is one the least expensive in our toaster Ratings, but it managed to achieve one of the highest overall scores. Toast popped up evenly brown with nearly every batch, and the toaster offers very good control over color range, in case some in your household like toast dark and some like it light. Special features include a bagel setting, and slide-out crumb tray for easy cleanup. Its retro metal housing looks good on the countertop.
In our space heater tests, the Holmes was very good at heating an average-size room in 15 minutes but a little less so at spot heating a person in the room. Still, it was easy to use, has very good safety features and isn’t hot to the touch when it’s turned on. It has a fan and was so-so for noise, a consideration if you’re using it in a bedroom.
The least expensive Rowenta steam iron in our tests, this was also the best of that brand. It was excellent overall and delivered superb ironing and lots of steam. The surge button provides a burst of steam when trying to remove stubborn wrinkles and the vertical steam feature lets you remove wrinkles from hanging garments and drapes. The sole plate is stainless steel and the ready light indicates the iron is hot enough to use. There’s a self-clean feature and auto-shutoff, which turns off the iron when left stationary for a short time.
Eureka’s corded hand vacuum was better suited for pickup on bare floors and at edges, but in our vacuum tests it was impressive overall and fairly quiet. Pluses include a spacious dust bin, onboard tool storage, and an electric rotating brush that adapts for vertical surfaces. As for minuses, the exhaust from the powerful motor can blow debris around before it can be picked up. And it was a bit on the heavy side for a hand vacuum.
This Crane tabletop was excellent in overall performance, and is intended to humidify areas up to 250 square feet. In our humidifier tests, this ultrasonic model earned excellent scores for moisture output, noise level, energy efficiency, and its output with hard water and was very good for convenience. Daily output is 1.4 gallons. The Crane comes in many other colorful child-friendly shapes.
Clear2O’s carafe-based filter was superb at removing lead and organic compounds in our water filter tests and costs relatively little per year to do it. There’s also a filter-life indicator that tells you when it’s time to change the filter. You fill the carafe by removing your kitchen faucet’s aerator and connecting the attached hose to your faucet, which allows quicker fill-ups than you typically get from a carafe filter. The downside: The adapters may not be compatible with spray-type faucets, and you can’t fill the carafe manually.
–Mary H.J. Farrell (@mhjfarrell on Twitter)
Holiday Planning & Shopping Guide
Check Consumer Reports’ 2015 Holiday Guide for our picks of the best gifts, details on the latest deals, time-saving tips, and much more. And see our countdown calendar for top gift ideas for everyone on your list.
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