Bought as a gift for my 16 yr old daughter who has found a love for baking....and she loves it. She, of course, wanted a Kitchen-Aid, but for her needs this is a great little mixer. The good- Price!!, ease of use, mixing bowl, dough hook and whisk are stainless steel, fairly strong motor, easy to clean. the bad - all plastic body is so so quality, (but if you use it gently, it is fine), mixing blade is hard plastic (but works fine), would be nice to have a few more speeds, This is a very good stand mixer. I think that for the price it can't be beat. As stated I bought this for my daughter, who absolutely love it! We'll have to see how long it lasts as she is using the crap out of it and I have gained 5 lbs since I got for her. But she is a great baker. This machine work fine, has a strong motor, and for cakes, pasteries, cookies and the like it works great. I can see how some people have complained about the machines ability to mix bread dough (I would not recommend using it for that often) but it will get the job done, if you use a little care). It looks great, works fine (so far) and she has not had any issues with it so far. The "fold" in feature, left you manually pulse the motor to "gently" fold ingredients, it works, its more a marketing gimick then anything else, becasue you can just start and stop any other stand mixer in the low speed setting and get the same results. It will move around with a heavy batter or dough, but the suction cups keep the mixer for running all around your counter. As it is make of plastic it will shake rattle and swing with heavy batters and dough at high speed. overall, for the price this a pretty good stand mixer to get the budding baker, or if you don't need a heavy duty one for normal general baking. I would recommend.
