Russell Hobbs 14684 Allure Kettle > Reviews (1)

The kettle is probably our most used appliance. We are forever using it to make cups of tea, add to our cooking or to make baby bottles up. Because it is used so often when we bought a new one we wanted to make sure we bought the most efficient one as, like the saying goes, a watched kettle never boils!

My main need in terms of a kettle is speed. I think the majority of us now have such busy lifestyles that we want everything to be done as quickly as possible and this includes the boiling of the kettle. Especially for us as we have a baby who often relies upon the kettle boiling quickly for us to be able to warm her food up and so every second counts when you have a screaming baby!

We chose this Russell Hobb's kettle as it looked to be very stylish and would fit in with our kitchen, but, most importantly it has a quick boil.

Ths kettle does look stylish there is no doubt about that. It is very tall and slim and a stainless steel finish. It isn't like a short round kettle and it isn't very round, this is definitely a contemporary look compared to most others on the market. The name 'Russell Hobbs' is engraved on the side in very large lettering... this I don't like. I don't like brands being thrown in your face and this kettle certainly does that so in terms of looks the way I'd improve it would be to make the name not as dramatic.

It holds 1.7 litres of water which is plentiful for us and if we did need more then it wouldn't take long to boil so in terms of capacity this kettle is spot on.

The kettle sits on it's pad which can be any angle- it can swivel 360 degrees which is always useful. Some kettle can only slot onto the pad at one angle and this does restrict you a bit and isn't as useful; especially if you're left handed it means you can use the kettle whichever way you want. This is such a useful feature which I hadn't really considered before I went kettle shopping! I never realised there were so many details to look into!

There is an LED light which displays when your kettle is boiling. This is useful too so you can tell just by glancing over at it whether you did actually turn it on or not- I'm always very guilty of flicking the switch and forgetting to turn it on at the wall! This light makes it easy to see whether it is on or not!

The kettle is quite heavy, I think it's more so than our old one so may not be for you if you struggle with weak wrists or maybe you would just make sure you didn't fill it too full so as to reduce the weight.

There is a special element built into the kettle which ensures a rapid boil. This is the selling point for me. Even when this kettle is full it still boils quickly which is essential in our house. Whilst it boils away it is a quiet boil too so it doesn't intrude in your other activities and you can still hold a conversation if it's boiling away in the background!

When setting it up I consulted the instruction manual and it stated we should boil it 3 times before using. That was all so it was very easy to understand to get working!

There are no complicated procedures, everything is straight forward so it is ideal!

My opinion

I think that this is a great kettle. I like the fact that it is very fast to get to the boil and that it swivels a full 360 which makes it that bit more flexible. The capacity is just fine for us and I like the slim, tall sleak style of it. It is definitely a contemporary design and fits well within our kitchen. I really do rate this kettle.

The only negatives I can think of have been mentioned above; it is quite heavy compared to other kettles and it is not too attractive to look at in terms of having the brand name all down the side of it.

All in all I would rate this kettle and recommend it as it does exactly what it should do and what it advertises it does. We bought ours from Tesco although I know they are available online from Amazon. They RRP at £49.99 but at the moment you can pick it up for £42.99 from Amazon.

Definitely worth the prie we paid