Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We bought this waffle iron due to the good reviews. It seemed a bit strange that the timer had it's own separate battery, but we figured we could live with that quirk. After the iron arrived, we eagerly unpacked it and started cooking waffles! What a disappointment! Every waffle of every recipe we tried was either burnt to a crisp or not cooked enough. Cooking for the recommended 4 minutes resulted in charcoal. Cooking for less than 2.5 minutes resulted in overdone on the outside, uncooked on the inside. After giving up for the night, we regrouped in the morning for another try. After getting the same results with yet more recipes, we were just about to give up, when we had the idea to unplug the iron 1 minute after putting in the batter, and leaving it unplugged for the duration of cooking the waffle (total cook time: 3.5 minutes). The brilliance of the dual power design of the waffle iron immediately became apparent! We could unplug the iron, but the timer would keep on going, telling us when the waffle was done! Reusing the power cord plug as a temperature control device is a simple and elegant solution - I'm surprised it has not been adopted by other manufacturers. Despite being in awe of this marvel of engineering, we decided to return it. UPDATE: We decided to give this product another chance. When the new one arrived from Amazon, we had the same results. We returned it and purchased instead an UNO belgian waffle maker - work's like a charm.