The Brentwood Stainless Steel Tea Kettle is a sleek product that fits comfortably on our kitchen counter. The separate controller piece sits under it and controls the heating element. As expected, when the water is hot, the kettle turns itself off, producing a noticeable click as well as turning off the light on the bottom of the kettle. However, I am a little disappointed by the speed with which it heats the water and shuts itself off, at least when used with only a cup or two of water. It sounds and looks as if the water has reached boiling, but the kettle takes a fair amount of time after that before it turns off. It's still new to us and we're giving it the benefit of the doubt that it "knows" better than we do when the water is really hot, and maybe we'll be deciding for ourselves to turn it off manually in the future, but even then I can't say this gets water hot as quickly as I expect. For many years, we've used a Sunbeam Hot ShotSunbeam 6131 Hot Shot Hot Water Dispenser, Black to heat one or two cups of water. After being accidentally run without water a few times (the Hot Shot will shut itself down when dry, too), it had started to turn itself off before the water actually reached boiling. My wife was impressed with a kettle she saw in Europe that was similar to the Brentwood, so I decided to give it a try. There is no doubt that the Hot Shot will bring as much as two cups of water to a boil faster than the Brentwood will. On the other hand, the Brentwood holds three times as much water, so when more water is needed, it is a better choice. For the smaller amount of water, though, the HotShot is better. The difference in time is very noticeable. The Hot Shot's water was usually waiting for me when I was preparing something; I'm usually twiddling my thumbs waiting for the Brentwood to get hot. On the other hand, I prefer pouring the water from the Brentwood to holding down a valve on the Hot Shot when I want to use the heated water. Bottom line: The tea kettle is a good product, but less efficient than I expected. It may be better when used to heat larger amounts of water rather than just a cup or two. It is more "elegant" than some alternatives. Update, a couple of weeks later. After heating some larger amounts of water I find the Brentwood kettle to still be slower than I was hoping for and would like. It is as slow or slower than the stove for a like amount of water. Still good in general, just less than what would be ideal. Another month has passed and we have now a ceramic top stove (the previous stove was a 29-year old coil electric). The Brentwood is considerably faster for boiling water (1.5 cups), even when using the stove's high power burner. Someone asked if this is UL approved. It is not. However, it is ETL approved. Go to intertek.com for more information about ETL approval, but here's a brief quote from the site: "The ETL Listed Mark is proof of product compliance (electrical, gas and other safety standards) to North American safety standards. Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ's) in 50 states and Canada and retailers accept the ETL Listed Mark as proof of product safety. "
