West Bend 53790 Electric Kettle, Black

Update: Three months later, and the kettle is broken. It just stopped working! The blue light still turns on, but the water no longer boils. Bummer. Down to 1 star, if they'd let me edit the star rating part of this review. I have updated my review to 1 star (per the request of some commenters).

This is my original review, when I gave it 4 stars:

"When I first received my West Bend Electric Kettle, I was so excited because it has everything I want. It boils water faster than my previous kettle, it has a nice round base so the kettle can spin (in case I have to grab the handle from different angles), and the design is very clean and sensible. The water level is sort of hard to see through the blue plastic, but it's fine.

I almost came here and wrote my rave review just a couple days after receiving it, but now I'm glad I waited a few weeks. The lid doesn't open on its own anymore. There is a little button at the top which is supposed to pop the...Read more

I really like this electric kettle. It has a smaller footprint than my previous appliance and boils water much more rapidly.
My only (very minor) complaint is that it is not as easy to see the water level in other than bright light but that is easily remedied.
Appliances do not always perform as advertised but in this case, the West Bend kettle actually performs better than I expected.

Kettle works fine, filling level is easy to see. And the lid opens easy to fill the kettle up. The round plateau on which you place the kettle is very handy as it doesn't matter how you put the kettle on there.