Philips HR1861 Whole Fruit Juicer, Aluminium

In the end, I decided to plump for thiss Philips machine, as it had quite a few good reviews, and it looked good (my thinking being that even if it wasn't great it might look good on the work top!).

So I was delighted when I got it for many reasons:

1. It makes great juice (and rather the jug supplied allows for a generous amount of juice). It makes very light work of apples, oranges, strawberries, grapefruit, carrots etc. It is surprising how much juice you get out of one apple. When I was researching, I wondered how much preperation was required... With this model, the chute is big enough for whole apples and oranges, but they recommend that you peel the oranges first (apparently the skin is very bitter), but other non-citrus fruits need no preparation whatsoever.

2. It isn't as loud as a jet engine (it's actually only as loud as my kettle - at the most).

3. It is farily compact - It only takes as much room as the kettle (maybe a little bit more), but I have a tiny kitchen, and it has fitted in no problem.

4. It's dead easy to clean and doesn't require a PhD to put it back together. It is very simple to put together, and the supplied brush for the metal thingy that mashes up the fruit is very handy indeed.

5. It gets every drop of moisture out of the fruit leaving only dry pulp in the pulp container. I had read in other reviews that it doesn't get every drop of juice, but my one certainly seems to.

6 It doesn't make mess. WHich is always good - especially as I am usually very good a making mess. the jug's lid also stops splashes.

Things it won't do:

- Startchy fruits (avocados, bananas, mango etc) but I think that goes for all of these juicers.

- Clean itself. Though it is dishwasher safe - I've just not tried that yet.

Overall I am really chuffed to bits with it, and recommend it to anyone who like me, has found it all too confusing.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm off for some more (surprisingly delicious) carrot and orange juice...

Not having to chop fruit and veg makes more difference than I thought it would, it's so easy to whizz it through. The juice does come out quickly, the jug needs the lid! I agree with another reviewer's comment that the pulp is wetter than hoped, but pushing the pulp back through again gets more of the juice out - but does negate the speed of juicing issue.

It is quite bulky and takes up a fair bit of counter space in my kitchen but as I use it pretty much every day, it's staying there!

The pulp container is large, so you can juice a lot in one go, but is so large it barely fits in my dishwasher. Putting a little bag in it makes that unneccessary. I had thought it a bit of a pain to dismantle and clean but I was making life difficult for myself and Mr Vale showed me an easier way.

All in all, an excellent juicer, and highly recommended.