Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

UPDATE, 3 years of use (Today is December 10 2014) and part of it finally died. I was slicing a really dense potato in my large fry cutting blade and ruined two of the blades by forcing it. The small blade cutter still works great. I actually like the smaller fries so guess I'll hold off on ordering a new one even though as of today, they are about 5 bucks cheaper. -------------- UPDATE 2 years of use: Only flaw so far is that after a ton of use, the plastic locking tab that holds the blade in place becomes weakened and could break. I just wedge a small piece of paper towel where the tab is to hold it in place and kept on whacking those 'taters! I still rate this inexpensive tool high for the average kitchen. NOTE: NOT, I repeat NOT, for dense sweet potatoes, carrots, Anything really dense, etc. If you want french fried sweet potatoes, or french fry dense anything, buy an expensive commercial quality french fry cutter. -------------- I purchased my progressive jumbo cutter a year ago. Since then, I've made french fries multiple times with guests and family visiting. Everyone that sees it is impressed and wants one, especially when they hear how inexpensive it is. FIRST, THE VIDEO REVIEW of the person getting a potato stuck IS DOING IT WRONG. You don't slowly push the handle. it's just one quick motion - whack! My video shows very large baking potato's. Small potato's are even easier. Additionally, I used the shoestring cutter which adds more resistance than the larger fry cutting blade. So the larger fries are even easier to cut. Having said that, here's what I think you need to know other than that I am a french fry nut: Pro's: 1. Inexpensive so if it breaks, who cares? Mostly it's fun and a great way to get someone 'watching' you cook to help out! 2. It really works and it is easy to cut potato's (wife and daughter have no problems). 3. It comes with two size cutting blades, one for small diameter (close to shoestring) fries, one for normal cut fries. If you want fries quick, use the smaller cut fries, they cook in just a few minutes! 4. It's easy to take apart and clean. 5. It has a suction cup on the bottom to help with steadying it. It does work well but remember it's not intended to be like gorilla glue, 'cmon get real! 6. As of this writing, conservatively speaking, I would bet I've sliced at least THREE 10 pound bags of potato's in a year. 7. I've never found anything like this at Wal-Mart. Not sure why. You would think this would be a staple on their utensil isle. It's easy to order via Amazon and its quick. 8. It takes average pressure to cut potato's. If you are working with big dense potato's that require seemingly a lot of pressure, STOP see CON# 1. below to make it easy. 9. If you love 'skin on' seasoned fries and you buy this, watch out!... you're gonna be busy. Con's: 1. It has plastic parts so don't be overly aggressive on a large dense potato. One quick whack does the trick. If not, reduce the size of your potato. ***Really large potato's, like _baking sized_ potato's (in my video example) sometimes need to be trimmed a bit on the end to shorten and/or cut in half (long ways) because it may be too wide to fit in the cutter (what I did to potato #2). I'm talking HUGE potato's, not your every day mid-sized Russet. Average potato's work well. 2. If the potato is DENSE, no matter the size of potato, it helps slice off the very end of the potato so the natural juice acts as a lubricant which helps the potato glide easily through the cutter (if you'll notice, my 2nd potato was even faster). If you try to be the incredible hulk on this thing, you'll break it. It's definitely not meant for commercial kitchens but is perfect for the everyday kitchen. I just ordered 3 more tonight as last minute gifts.