Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Your first few experiences with this tool are likely to be delightful. It features a ceramic blade, which is much, much sharper than the machined steel blades found on most mandolins. It is small and light, making it quick and easy to use and clean. Adjustment is accomplished simply by rotating a rectangular piece of plastic on the underside of the tool to one of four positions. Unfortunately, the faults in this tool will soon become manifest. First of all, as many reviewers have said, it is dangerous. The guard that comes with it is worthless and it's difficult to imagine a guard for any hand-held mandolin being of much use; such a guard is, by necessity, too small and not held in a fixed line of movement relative to the blade. Second, this tool is dangerous even when not in use: there is nothing supplied to cover the blade when it is not in use, so if you have a drawer full of kitchen tools in which you dig to find things, your fingers will eventually meet the blade. Second, there are only four thickness settings (3.0mm, 2.0mm, 1.3mm, and 0.5mm). This is somewhat limiting. That the thinnest setting is 0.5mm is especially disappointing: Be aware that 0.5mm is substantially thicker than "paper-thin," so if that's what you are buying a mandolin to do, do not buy this one. Third, it is flimsy. Because it is constructed entirely of plastic, it bends while you use it. This is especially bothersome for the thinnest setting. When cutting thin slices, if the plane of the deck on which the food slides is not perfectly parallel with the plane in which the blade sits, you will end up slicing only part of the food, with your slice tapering out into paper-thin-ness and then into nothing. Cutting fibrous or dense foods is difficult at any thickness due to the flimsiness. Finally, the blade, so sharp when new, dulled to the point of near inutility after slicing two bulbs of fennel and a bulb of celery root. The blade is neither replaceable nor even removable for sharpening, so as soon as the blade dulls, the entire tool is trash. In summary, there is little or nothing that I can do with this tool that I cannot do as well with a knife and the knife is less dangerous.