Philips GC7420 Pressurised Steam Generator Iron, 800 Watt

In brief - I was honestly blown away by the performance, and I think I might be a little bit in love with it; but this is a tool for someone with a big family to iron for: I imagine if you do a job-lot on a Sunday afternoon, this would be a Godsend - If you only iron one or two bits every few days, its probably way more beast than you'll ever need.

Pro's;
1. Its extremely simple to use, despite looking quite intimidating when you get it out of the box, you literally plug it in, fill it with water and turn it on, wait 2 minutes - then off you go! Theres no fiddly bits and bobs other than the typical dial you get on any standard iron.
2. It has a built in decalcifier - so no scale flecks on your clothes
3. Sturdy and beautifully made: not a single part of it looks or feels cheap or "thats gonna break off"
4. The sole-plate glides perfectly, and has a narrowed tip which is fantastic for ironing details, between buttons etc
5. The steam is powerful enough to knock out some quite demonic creases: I have a thick canvas-like material jacket which Ive been unable to wear for nearly 6 months due to some horrible creasing (after washing) which hasnt come out regardless of what Ive tried - it now looks brand new.
6. I tried it also on a cotton shirt, thick denim jeans and some linen trousers - all came out beautifully flat (if thats the way to explain it!) - I was really impressed
7. The time it takes to iron a shirt is striking: literally less than a minute - I can see it being loved deeply when Im running late in a morning and find my shirt is creased.
8. It doesnt spot or pool water on your clothes or board
9. In the images it looks garish neon blue - it isnt, its parts are powder blue, white and the tank is a shade off navy - it looks really rather cool and, if an iron ever can be, cheerful!

Con's;
1. It DRINKS water - I only ironed 5 things the first go I used it, and I had to refill it twice
2. Very heavy - if you had an old or cheap'n'cheerful ironing board it would probably make the legs fold under! If the base fell off the board and landed on your foot, it would be a trip to casualty and a plaster cast I imagine.
3. Noisy - which it has to be due to the pump - I just wasnt expecting it to be quite THAT loud - if you iron while watching TV, you'll probably need to put the volume up quite a bit (the steam blasts out at quite a racket too)
4. It takes up a fair bit of room on the ironing board, so you have to work around it when ironing some items - not a problem for things like Tshirts, but long trousers etc you might have to do some laundry acrobatics to get the right angle
5. It gets hot - all of it. It does warn you of this on the box, but I wasnt expecting for instance the flex wire between iron and base to be so hot - Id be worried if I had children around
6. Its not TRICKY to fill, but its a bit of a pain - I did splash water everywhere because the inlet, though large, has a sort of grid over it which deflects water unless you trickle it in. More annoying because you have to do it quite a few times!
7. Its massive, so Im going to find it difficult to store between use
8. Expensive: Ive seen similar ones in Tesco for around £60
9. It seems to take a lot longer to cool down than my old iron. Again a concern if you have little ones or pets running around

Final note: it has NO extras - for instance it doesnt have the traditional spray function, which at first I thought "oh... what if I need to dampen the clothes to get deep creases out?", but you really wouldnt ever need it, it makes use simplicity in itself and the steam power is phenomenal - You could iron a knife edge crease in denim, then iron it out again just as easily. You could probably even strip wallpaper with it! (*Dont use it to strip wallpaper)

So yes, I cant recommend it enough for someone who has epic ironing tasks - but its definitely excessive for light users.

I've used steam generator irons fror several years and current own a Morphy Richards model which I've had for the past year and used to make comparisons with, and write this review for the GC7420.

Considering the price of the Morphy Richards was almost half that of the Philips, I was expecting bigger and better things when the GC7420 arrived, was unboxed and turned on. Unfortunately, things weren't to be.......

My first disappointment was the water tank wasn't detachable. This meant a pan of water would be needed to fill up the reservoir - or several trips to the tap to fill the filler cup supplied with the iron. To fill the reservoir with water took four fills of the cup. The Morphy Richards I'm comparing this too has a removable tank which you just put under the cold water tap to fill.

To the ironing itself then. I managed to get through 5 long sleeved man size shirts on the first tank of water before the steam 'ran-out' and a water refill was needed; not brilliant. The reason for this is that this model has no variable steam control which for its price I find unforgivable. You have two choices of steam - 'on-demand' which is obtained by depressing the steam button with your thumb which then activates a burst of steam for a long as the button is pressed, or there is permanently on. The problem with the steam being permanently on is that the steam comes out at full belt, the unit drinks like the proverbial fish and unless the room is well ventilated, it quickly turns your workspace into a sauna......

To conclude, for its faults the Philips GC7420 does ultimately provide an extremely speedy and effective iron and removes heavy creases with total ease, but for the cost I'd expect a variable steam control, as for 'lighter' items such as shirts and tops the steam output is simply far too excessive and wasteful of the water. My advice would be to browse Amazon for other steam generator irons as my own experience has proven there are far better models available for far less money.

First of all I should point out this iron is huge. The base itself is twice the size of the iron, but then you also have the iron sitting on top of it. Then you have the wire to plug it into the socket, and the cable connecting the iron itself to the water filled tank. It doesn't make for easy storage and so you do need a decent amount of storage space for this iron. Despite how fancy and technical this iron may seem, it's actually extremely easy to use and you don't need to study manuals for ages before you use it. In fact the box it comes in had 2 cardboard instruction cards you simply detach from the box, and a quick glance at these and you know what you have to do. You simply fill up the tank with water using the jug provided, switch it on, set the dial on the iron to the correct setting as you do on any iron, wait a couple of minutes and then you're set to go. Due to the huge size of this iron and it's tank, and the fact we only have a small ironing board, it was obvious from the off set that this wouldn't be sitting on the ironing board. Instead we have to put it down on a table next to the ironing board just to use it. It might sit fine on much larger ironing boards however due to the size and weight, I would be wary about doing so, especially if you have children or pets running around.

wouldn't be put off by the pictures of this iron as it's not as bright blue as it seems. In reality it's a nice shade of blue which isn't too garish at all, and the whole iron is excellent quality and sturdy. There are also some other good features about this iron which makes it even better, one being that you can fill the tank up with more water at any time, even during ironing. The iron is always ready to use in less than 2 minutes, meaning an early morning rush iron of a shirt is possible, and there's also never any drops of water that leak from the iron as I have found happens with other steam irons. It also has permanent anti-calc tablets which delay the formation of scale build up, and also means you don't have those annoying white flecks appearing whilst ironing. Safety wise it has an overheat safety stop to prevent the boiler from overheating, and it also has rubber feet to prevent slipping. I should however point out that this iron does get very hot, and I suggest leaving it to cool down after use before moving it as even the base and the cable gets hot. This also means being careful when using it around children and pets.

I was sceptical about having an iron so big, however I can see the many benefits it has. It irons everything with ease and seriously cuts down on ironing time, making this perfect for someone with a large family and a huge quantity of clothes to iron. For people like me whoever, where there's only 2 of us, we only really get it out if we are ironing a few things at once, because it's large size makes it awkward getting in and out of storage.