I bought this cooker seven months ago, and really liked it. It's quite handsome, and I have no complaints about how it works. I've made many fine meals in it. Sadly, the knob broke a few weeks or a month ago. I glued it back together, but today it broke apart again. I don't think it will take a second gluing any better than the first, so now if I want to use it I have to use pliers or something, and I have to count clicks--which are not as distinct as I'd like--to know quite which setting it's on.
Such a shame this otherwise great cooker is now incredibly difficult to use because of such a "small" detail!
This was my first full size slow cooker (I have a 1.5 qt one too) and I've learned a couple of things I'll share for people looking for their first. The 4 quart size has been really good. I first bought it when I was living alone, so I'd have lots of leftovers, which I love. Now I live with my boyfriend, and the size is still good--we usually have enough left over for one or both of us to have lunch of it the next day. The oval shape has worked out well also; it's possible to fit larger things in it than I'd be able to in a round cooker of the same volume.
My next one, though, will be programmable. I'd thought the feature was silly, because you can only go from high to warm or low to warm, not high to low, or high to low to warm. Now that I have some experience using it, I see that the ability to switch to warm automatically at a certain time would be immensely useful, for those times when a recipe calls for 6 hours on low, but you'll be away from home for 8 hours.
Good luck choosing one!