250-Watt 5-Speed Stand Mixer, Black

I bought this almost a year ago to replace my Sunbeam electric hand mixer that I'd used for 13 years. To give you some background, I grew up in a home with a professional Kitchenaid stand mixer, and I used it regularly for cooking and baking. I'm an avid cook, although by no means a gourmet or professional.What I like best about this mixer is that the top part detaches to become just a powerful hand mixer. You can go quickly and seamlessly from stand mixing to hand mixing (and back again) without changing bowls or getting any new tools out. I pretty regularly start my recipes with the stand mixing function, then when it becomes too thick or the sides aren't getting scraped down, I detach the mixer and mix by hand, and then put it back and continue stand mixing.The bowl is not as large as I like, but so far it's been enough for most of my recipes. I put it in the dishwasher on a regular basis. No issues. It screws into the base with a simple twist and it's easy to remove. The bowl spins on friction from the mixer (I think?) rather than a motor. So, it doesn't spin when you've got thick batter in there. Honey badger don't care.Where the bowl/stand function really shines is for thin batters/meringues/whipped creams, etc. I used to have regular meringue failures with my hand mixer...but now I'm making awesomeness.This is a VERY powerful hand mixer, at least compared to my other one. I haven't had any issues mixing even the stiffest dough when using the hand mixing function. If I have a huge recipe, I get out my ginormous mixing bowl and use just the hand mixer alone. I've never needed the "Boost" function, and I've rarely even made it up to the highest speed setting.The machine came with two beaters and two dough hooks. I haven't used the dough hooks. The beaters are fine; one has a white nub on the bottom so you know to put it in a different slot -- it's what helps the bowl spin, I think. The beaters started rusting after just one trip through my dishwasher. I was pretty bummed. A year later, they're still in good shape, just have unsightly rust areas. That's a big flaw that the manufacturer should fix, IMHO.The "Eject" button is a bit stiff; I have to press with quite a bit of force to get the beaters out, but they've never not come out.One of the things I like about this product is that I keep it out on my counter and it works as a storage bracket for the hand mixer -- before I had to wind the cord up and stow it in a cabinet. That probably sounds weird, but having a storage place for it out on the counter just makes life easier.So far, I'm very pleased with the purchase, and this is a product I would purchase again.I did give pretty careful thought to purchasing a Kitchenaid instead of this, but the price was a big deterrent, plus the reviews were discouraging. I now can say from having experience with both products, that I like this better. Yes, Kitchenaids are prettier and a status symbol. Yes, there are models that would hold a lot more in the mixing bowl. However, the flexibility of the hand/stand mixing function makes this a superior product for my needs. I wish they made it with a larger mixing bowl option and better beaters.

I don't often leave negative reviews - I'm pretty forgiving of products that don't meet my expectations (or maybe I usually have low expectations!). However, in this case, I'm making an exception. I was really disappointed in this mixer.PROSIt works. The motor is pretty powerful. I read a lot of reviews that said it was weak and wouldn't mix anything but very light stuff, but I didn't have that particular problem (though I had plenty of others) - it had no trouble mixing up some pretty stiff cookie dough.CONSWhere to start.The bowl locks in place on the turntable, and unlocking it to move it to scrape the sides or get the stuff out of the middle is extremely difficult and awkward. You have to try to hold the spinning turntable still while turning the bowl counterclockwise to unlock it - all while the mixer's running and trying to spin the bowl in the other direction. Shutting the mixer off every time you need to loosen the bowl to scrape the sides is way too inconvenient.I tried not letting the bowl lock down, but that doesn't work - it locks automatically, just by the spinning action.This is important because where the beaters sit when the bowl is locked in place creates a kind of moat in whatever you're mixing, meaning you'll have stuff on the sides of the bowl *and* a big pile of stuff right in the center of the bowl that you can't mix in any way except unlocking the bowl and moving it around by hand. So it's not like you can just say "I just won't unlock the bowl from the stand" - you have to if you want to thoroughly mix whatever you're mixing.I didn't notice anyone else mention this, so maybe it's just me - maybe there's some easier way to do it. But neither I nor my boyfriend could figure out any other way to do it, and if it's so complicated reasonably intelligent people can't "figure it out" then it's poorly designed.When the part that holds the beaters is put down in the bowl, it also locks in place. The only way to raise it is to push a flimsy plastic button (that always feels like it's going to break, though it hasn't yet) on the front of the mixer - and you have to push it really, really hard to get it to work. That, too, is awkward and inconvenient.The whole stand is plastic and really light - which might seem like a good thing, except that it won't sit firmly on the counter - it's constantly sliding around, especially when you're trying to unlock the bowl and lift the beater-part to scrape the sides. I felt like I needed 4 hands to operate the thing - two to unlock the bowl, one to hold the beater-part, another to hold the mixer steady on the counter top.The mixer-part is powerful, though. I was making some cookies last weekend, and I got so frustrated with fighting with trying to unlock the bowl and lift the beaters to scrape the sides, that I finally gave up and removed the mixer from the stand and used it as a hand-held. (which is also difficult to do, the button that releases it is - again - flimsy and difficult to push). That does work - but it's *really* heavy, and runs *so* fast you have to be careful, on even the lowest speeds it would jerk my hand and arm around quite a lot when I lifted it the least bit out of the dough, where it was meeting less resistance. It felt very hard to keep hold of and control.I haven't tried the dough hooks, but the beaters themselves feel very flimsy and thin.I was so fed up with trying to use it as a stand mixer, I just permanently removed the mixer and plan to use it as only a hand mixer. But that's not what I wanted or needed - I wanted a stand mixer. The only reasons I'm not returning it is that I threw away the box before I'd really used it, and anyway, a higher-priced mixer isn't in the budget right now, so I need something. When it's in the budget, I'm definitely going to invest in another, better quality stand mixer.

Not as strong as I had hoped for but works okay for cookies, cakes, and other light recipes, not too good for bread or thicker recipes .

My mother just loves this item. It's a two in one mixer!

Good mixer for the price. Ability to convert to a portable mixer is a nice feature.

Nice