shoehorny's Full Review: Panasonic NI-S300TR Iron with Auto Shut-off
Review of Panasonic Auto Shut-off Steam Iron (October 13, 2009)
I have not ironed a shirt in a long time! All of my existing shirts are made of wrinkle-resistant material (more like wrinkle-proof, as the shirts never wrinkle!). I had bought this iron at a Black Friday event (day after Thanksgiving) a couple of years ago, and up until now, I never had a need to use it! I recently became a Cub Scout Den Leader for my son's Cub Scout Den, and I needed to wear a uniform. The uniform material is a bit stiff, and had multiple creases in it where it was folded. I decided to iron the shirt for my debut as a new den leader.
I have several steam irons. Most of them are old irons I had back in the days when everyone wore suits to work. They are tucked away in the basement in dusty boxes. I bought this new iron because I was attracted by the "jet-of-steam" feature that is used to blast out wrinkles. I had some curtains that seemed to be a bit wrinkled and I had planned to blast the wrinkles with this iron. (But my wife had another idea and took them down altogether and gave them to charity!)
The iron has some space aged looking design styling incorporated into it. It looks sleek and high-tech. The top piece is constructed of plastic, and the base plate is made of stainless steel. The iron is super light and easy to lift and carry around. It has a few extra buttons/switches that are not available on my older steam irons (such as the adjustable steam setting). It also has an internal mercury switch that turns the iron off after about ten minutes of non use (to cut down on energy and safety hazard of knocking it over). The iron uses 1200WATTS of power, and circulating off when not in use is a good thing! I really LOVE the retractable cord that stores the electric cord when the iron is not in use, making for tidy storage.
Other than that, the iron is still an iron. It operates very much the same way my old irons worked. You add some water to a reservoir, the water heats up and turns to steam that steams out wrinkles. The hot heated plate smoothes the wrinkles away. In fact, when I first used it, it brought back memories of the old days (especially the hissing sound made by the steam, and the smell of the steam coming off of the shirt).
The iron works very well! It heats up very quickly and is ready to use in a short time. Its light-weight takes some of the heavy lifting out of the chore or ironing. I did not find any time savings in using this iron over any other iron, nor were all the fancy extra features of much help to me. I just pushed the button for some steam, followed by some back and forth rubbing of the plate over the wrinkled area. The 6 ounce water reservoir with water level sight is sort of common on irons nowadays. I absolutely love the "jet-of-steam" feature. This feature allows you to blast out wrinkles with a jet of steam that comes out at the push of a button. It is actually a lot of fun to push the button and blast out steam!
On the negative side, the cord seemed to get in my way a bit (as with any other iron). Also, when I pressed the button for steam, some water dripped out onto the surface I was ironing leaving a wet spot. This happened often while I was ironing, and it tended to be a nuisance since I needed to dry it up with the hot plate of the iron, adding time.
I bought the iron on Black Friday for $10, but I see know the price is more like $20. I believe $20 is a fair price! You can spend a lot more for an iron that has these same, basic features - plus others that you will probably never need or use. You can buy this iron at Wal-Mart, Target, and many other department stores.
I would recommend this iron for someone who routinely or even casually irons clothes. It is probably not an industry style iron, due to the spitting water issue.
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