15 years and still going!

I'm always amazed to see this product still being sold at local Chinese supermarkets and here on Amazon. I've used mine for over 15 years now and quite regularly in the past 5 years. I don't see the non-stick stuff coming off the cook bowl but over time, there will be some small particles of rice stuck on quite permanently. I don't scrub because it is a non-stick surface. I've seen this happen with other rice cookers so I'm not sure you can get around this by just purchasing another brand. You're probably better off buying a softer wood paddle for cheap available at most Chinese/Japanese markets. My dad just sanded off the rough edges of the plastic paddle that came with my cooker. I haven't replaced my rice bowl yet as it still releases rice just fine. Unfortunately, the price is also unmoved after all these years.

Btw, I see inexperienced friends buying large (e.g. 10 cup) rice cookers. This is generally not a wise idea if you're only cooking for 1 or 2 people most of the time since the larger the cooker, the larger the minimum amount of rice to be cooked.

As a final note, I'm not aware of any heating element on the top of the cooker. The cooker is nicely sealed and does white rice well. Like many other cookers, it will also do brown rice well, except that the additional water requirements will result in an excessive amount of muddy brown splatter around the outside of the steam vent. It will automatically switch to a warming mode but unfortunately it does not have an auto shut off. Note that although you can warm for quite a while, the rice will eventually dry out and faster still if you are only cooking a small amount.

[Tuesday, December 04, 2007]

After 10 years still working strong.

I lost a my tiger rice cooker part. So I contacted tiger. I was surprise to hear they still sells replacement parts of my old cooker. Then I realized they still have the parts because they still sells exactly a same model as what I purchased over 10 years ago.

This product price went up quite a bit since when I bought it, but even then I thought this cooker was expensive because this cooker looks and feels cheap and it's simple. However my first impression was wrong, this happen to be a though rice cooker that can last long time. No wonder tiger sold this same product for long time, because it works very good as is!. The design is dated but who cares when things last for long time and you can replace the parts later, it's so much less wasteful.

One thing it's questionable is non stick surface of the rice container. After years of use it will start to get scratched off. You can replace it, but this is not popular thing to use for health reason now days.

Also Their company website is not informative. Finding support number was tricky (May be their support number was in the manual but I don't have it any more.), but once I found it everything went smooth. An Electronic product lasting this long is becoming rare these days, so I would give this product 5 stars.

My friend told me newer high end model of tiger/zojirushi can cook tastier rice. So if you are very particular about subtlety of rice flavor research farther otherwise this is just fine.

[Saturday, November 24, 2007]

Excellent

Full sealing pot with top and bottom heaters. Includes rice paddle and measuring cup.

[Monday, June 12, 2006]

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