Philips HD4656/22 Energy Efficient Kettle

This week I found our old kettle (from Australia) developed a bit of a post-modern unreliability - a Generation X kettle if you will.  It would heat water (slowly I might add) to about 60 degrees celcius and then switch the internal heater off but NOT flick the manual switch off.  So I would either get a tepid drink instead of a hot one (especially once cold milk, cold cup & cold spoon have come into contact with the water) or if you forgot that you’d put the kettle on it would heat the water up to 60 degrees, cool down a bit then switch itself back on and reheat the water in a continuous cycle until you remembered.   My need for a piping hot cup of tea is one that I should really see to with some form of counselling but I don’t have time for that so I decided to buy a new kettle.

Having looked around the place I did like the look of the glass ones with blue lights so you could see the boiling but they all retail at around £40 and I really only wanted to spend around £20.  Also, we have a young child and another one on the way so really glass kettles of boiling water were probably going to play on my mind - especially with the horror stories going around of glass kettles exploding.

Eventually I settled on the Philips HD4656/22 Energy Efficient Kettle.  It is energy efficient not because of some new fangled technology, but because you can clearly see how much water you’re putting in the kettle, especially for small amounts such as a single cup of tea or instant coffee (around 250ml).  Most kettles have a marker to show you how much you’ve put in so I’m not sure why this one is any better, but for some reason I have been putting the precise amount of water in for my medium/large cups of tea, and the marker for a single cup is about right in my opinion.

The kettle itself boils quickly and is quiet compared to our last one.  At the 1-cup marker it boils in 52.4 seconds - way faster than any other kettle I’ve ever owned.  In general the kettle feels solid and well built and there is the obligatory blue LED in the manual switch.  Blue LEDs continue to be way cooler than Red or Green LEDs, though I would like to see some Lilac ones soon.  Ho hum.

Finally the price is excellent considering its a fast-boiling, child-safe-ish, energy efficient, well-built kettle and would heartily recommend it to anyone needing a cheapish replacement.  -m@