Russell Hobbs Millenium : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Performance	Excellent
Ease of use	Satisfactory
Durability	Long
Safety	Very safe
Value for money	Good

Advantages:	Quick boiler, adjustable temperature
Disadvantages:	That beep ! A bit confusing at first .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

We have a new kettle at work. Not just any kettle, mind you, but a digital kettle. Does this sound strange to you? Surely you can’t digitise a kettle? Well, somebody has and we’ve got one.

So is it a good thing? It’s been ridiculed at work and I have to agree that it really does seem quite daft on the surface – yet it has its uses.

Let’s start with the basics. It’s a cordless jug kettle which holds the usual 3 pints of water. The kettle itself is quite plain, but quite smart. It’s built from white plastic and is a simple, unfussy shape. Looks a bit boring, but then again it should fit in fairly happily in most kitchens. The front is broken up by the usual water level window – in this case quite a large one which makes checking very easy. The handle is reasonably comfy and as a whole it pours well. At the same time, the lid fits snugly and although easy to open doesn’t have gaps around the edge for steam to shoot out of and scald you. (One of our old kettles used to do this to me all the time. Ouch.)

As I mentioned, it’s a cordless design. The base is a fair enough job. The contacts are in the middle, so you can swivel the jug through 360° on the base quite happily – which I guess would be handy for left-handers. Also makes it easier if you’ve put your kettle in an awkward spot. Excess cable coils up very neatly in the base, and you can arrange for just the right length to stick out. On the downside, it’s quite lightweight and will occasionally stay attached to the base of the jug when this is lifted.

Right, so where does the digital bit come in? Well, rather than a simple on/off switch, this thing has four push buttons and a little LCD screen at the top of the handle. Setting your kettle to boil is easy enough – punch the largest button and off it goes. The other three buttons are what add to the functionality, by allowing you to vary the temperature you want the water to reach. Rather than boiling water every time, you might choose it to heat to 90° and then shut off, so you can make a cup of coffee without scalding the coffee. Or you can set it to heat to a temperature that would suit a baby’s bottle. It’s really quite flexible. What’s more, you can also ask it to maintain a certain temperature. Wasteful of electricity probably, but it will keep the contents of your kettle bubbling away at just the right temperature indefinitely should you wish. The kettle is pre-programmed with a couple of settings for quick selection, but you can choose your own settings with a few more presses.

It must be said that it does perform quite well. Water boils quickly, and the overall impression is of a good-quality build with no leaks or obvious weak points. Ours must get through about 20 boil cycles a day and shows no sign of giving up under the pressure that wiped out the last kettle in a fortnight. It’s also quite a safe kettle – it won’t boil dry easily. Ours was set to boil with only half an inch of water in it the other day. The kettle shut off and starting beeping at us to let us know what we’d done!

On the downside, I really would have to say that it’s a bit too much for me. I can see the merit in selectable temperatures and “keep warm” settings – but it’s overly complex. It is easy to operate after a few goes, but it’s not at all intuitive for the novice. It has been known to baffle more than a few people in our office – and to be fair it’s not overly clear how it works. Certainly, I’d struggle to put it onto “keep warm” without checking the instructions.

What really irks me though, is the incessant beeping! I could forgive everything else, if it didn’t have a horrible high-pitched electronic beep! Every time it boils, the kettle doesn’t just shut off – it must announce the successful completion of its task with three sharp bleeps. Not even a pleasant chime or something. A horrible, sharp electronic bleep. Now I know that’s petty – but I spend all day with computers, photocopiers and phones bleeping at me. I don’t want my kettle to start picking on me too!

Overall I think this can be safely recommended as it’s a good quality bit of kit. The beeping and complexity annoys me, but if you master it, it will probably prove a useful tool to you. Especially if you drink a lot of quality coffee that doesn’t like boiling water.

Expect to pay about £30.