Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read all the reviews for most of the brand name meat slicers. Amazon makes it very easy to do this since they offer so many brands and models of brands, along with consumer reviews. Then I took the trouble to personally take a good look at the available brands at local merchants. I might mention that the Chef's Choice brand was only available at Kitchen Kaboodle, and then only the Model 610. Of course, I couldn't try out the meat slicers by slicing meat since none were plugged in, and it would be rather messy for stores to offer a demo on a product like this. What I did find was the Chef's Choice offered almost 'frictionless' operation of the slider that carries the meat across the blade. No other brand was as easy to move. The Chef's Choice also has a 'slider lock' that locked the slider over the blade, a definate safety and storage feature. Few of the others offered this. The Chef's Choice also appeared to be just better built with more metal and less plastic in the 'structural' parts of the unit. The Chef's Choice Model 615 (unavailable locally) also features a little heavier motor than the Model 610, and most other brands in the same price range. I finally settled on the Chef's Choice Model 615, mainly based on the larger motor and the quality of the Chef's Choice brand overall. I tried it out the day after Christmas (it was a present), first on a boneless pre-cooked ham, then on left over Prime Rib Roast (bones removed). I sliced the ham at the 1mm setting (deli sliced) and got a whole plate of uniformly sliced ham, with very little effort and little motor slow-down. The machine also only left about 1/4" of the butt end of the ham unsliced. Then I sliced the Prime Rib Roast at about 1/4" slices. Again, the effort was minimal and the resulting slices were very uniform. Clean up was very easy, all the parts that needed to be removed from the machine for cleaning came apart easily, and went back together just as easy. NOTES: Keep your hands away from the blade when operating (the design makes this easy), and be very careful when removing and cleaning the blade. I can assure you that it will slice fingers just as easily as it slices ham. Let the blade do the cutting - don't force the meat through the blade faster than it will cut. This machine will cut very fast, but will not compare to a $1500, 12" Hobart Deli Slicer. I do think that you get a very good value for the money, and much better than most. I gave the Chef's Choice Model 615 'Five Stars' for Quality, Value, and Ease of Use.