Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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86 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My first ever review of an appliance..., July 23, 2007
I've never been prompted to write a review of any product that I've purchased over the years, but the Rowenta Focus iron has changed all that. After 50-plus years of ironing, I think I've tried every iron on the market. And I've been dissatisfied with them all. My latest, a Black and Decker, remained on the same setting (the hottest), because it was NEVER hot enough. I wear a lot of cotton and linen, which, of course, means a lot of wrinkles. I've misted and starched (when appropriate) ahead of time, all to no avail. I was just about ready to go back to an all polyester wardrobe when I asked a tailor in my hometown to recommend a good iron. Without hesitation, she said, "Rowenta". So I read all the reviews I could find, and decided to take the plunge.
WOW!!! First of all, with my old Black and Decker, I'd have to iron a sleeve or panel of fabric in three or four passes. But with the Rowenta, it only took one pass to remove the wrinkles, even on linen. I quickly realized that my ironing time would be cut in half! And the narrow tip for getting inbetween buttons is genius-inspired. And the STEAM!!! For those who've said it consumes a lot of water, well---duh?? It TAKES a lot of water to produce that much steam.
If you've had it, as I did, with poorly fuctioning equipment, treat yourself to this product. You may just find yourself having a love affair with an appliance. What a joy!!
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77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A steam machine, January 14, 2007
I like to use a lot of steam when I iron, and the Focus comes up to temperature fast and makes great evenly distributed steam. The automatic steam function works pretty well and is easy to use, but I tend to ad a bit more as much because it makes ironing more fun as any useful reason.
This iron did a spectacular job on my more delicate silk shirts as well as making quick work of rumpled kahkis.
The heat seems more evenly distributed than the Black and Decker i was using, and everything about the steam is superior.
The narrow tip makes the area around buttons noticably easier.
The ONLY issues I have with the Focus is that it doesn't have an on/off button (it does have a great three way auto off feature which I tested to verify for safetys sake). It sometimes draws an arc when plugging and unplugging it which can be hard on outlets after extended use.
It also will drip a little durring longer sessions of use.
Overall very highly recomended.
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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good ironing with a few issues, August 6, 2008
In the last 13 years I have bought 2 irons - a low-end Proctor Silex and a middle-of-the-road Panasonic (NI-551R) comparable to the Panasonic NI-A56NR Steam/Dry Iron w/Non-stick Soleplate w/Vertical Steam. For approx. 9 years I have ironed with it every single week day and 6 weeks ago it decided it had just too much and quit.
Now this was an awesome opportunity for me....being a starving student (Yes Dude! Students need to iron clothes too :o) ), I had bought the cheapest iron I could afford - but now I could finally choose what I wanted!
My major requirements were that my iron:
* Get sufficiently hot
* Have plenty of steam - as I only wear 100% cotton shirts and slacks
* Have sufficient steam-on-demand - steam jet should not cool down the iron too quickly
* Should glide well, and,
* Have no leaks.
Doing my research, I found that Rowenta irons were on top, and people loved the Focus as much as the Rowenta DZ9080 Advancer Iron.
At the lower price-point I bought the Focus and the Rowenta DX-8800 1750-Watt Professional Iron, thinking one of these were it.
I was leaning towards the Focus and so opened that first. It is a great iron, plenty of powerful steam - I only needed the jet for stubborn wrinkles. The heat-up time was good and the ironing was smooth. But there were also some cons.
The iron is significantly larger and heavier than anything I have used. There is a fatigue factor to using this iron for ironing a weeks worth of clothes. I'm sure one can get used to it, but I didn't - I do workout but not in the same motion as ironing!
Second the iron will not fit in my ironing board stand. My ironing board is slightly smaller than the large pro-boards you see around. This is inconvenient as I am a little concerned walking away from a hot, heavy vertical iron. I have tried the larger boards and I prefer the size of my board.
The biggest inconvenience, and this may be for ALL stainless steel plate irons is that a residue builds up on the surface (I do not use any starch on my clothes!) and adds drag to the ironing. About 2 weeks into the ironing, the iron would not glide. I took a large, multi-folded cloth napkin and cleaned out the hot iron. I never encountered this in the past as the Panasonic has a titanium non-stick coating which had super smooth gliding all of those years.
Also for such a large iron, I would have expected better placement of the dial....I did change the setting accidentally.
So the verdict is that I really like this iron for what it can do, but I realized that my old Panasonic was lighter, just as smooth and removed wrinkles nearly as well. I decided that I would try the Panasonic 56NR which has a little more wattage than my old iron.
The DX8800 also raised doubts on the quality and reliability of this iron. It was DOA as far as the steam goes - no steam at all! (Yah! I did fill it with water)
A few other observations:
All irons seem to have sufficient water capacity for 2-3 cotton clothes - whether this comes out as auto-steam or the manual jet steam. And I think this is a good thing if you have to refill often as then you don't have water left over to leak.
And leaking while ironing....people need to ensure that they do not switch on steam options when they are ironing outside the steam zone...I did accidentally move the dial to a lower setting and sure enough, I got a few drops on my clothes. I realized my mistake, dialed up and everything was fine.
Contrary to what the women reading this think, I am a man and I DO read instructions - just never follow them!! ;o) I used distilled water instead of tap water (for 9 years!!) in my old Panasonic as I did not want to deal with cleaning the calc build up and it never leaked - NEVER! What you might not realize is that after cleaning your iron the calc will smear your next few clothes. It's just unnecessary overhead....I'd rather remove the water daily than use non-distilled water.
One last thing....I think most of the high-end irons use stainless steel as it is a good conductor of heat, it heats more effectively, maybe to higher temperatures and retains that heat....but even the top-of-the-line Rowenta Advancer has a Titanium non-stick coating - which leads me to believe that a non-stick coating is more desirable than a stainless steel finish.
I will be reviewing the Panasonic 56NR at a later date.
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