I bought this to for my almost 3 year old. It is sturdy and very good value, even including two small pots of playdoh and a cutting tool.
You push playdoh into the machine and press down the lever to extrude long "worms" of playdoh with various profiles. Turn the wheel to select a profile. This works pretty well, though some of the playdoh gets squashed over the top of the wheel instead of through the intended hole. This doesn't spoil the finished "worm" so it doesn't seem to concern my child! There are also ridged patterns on and underneath the handle of the machine that can be used for pushing pieces of playdoh onto to transfer designs.
At the bottom of the toy is a compartment for storing the two small pots of playdoh. It is worth hanging on to these pots for refilling with new playdoh when the original stuff goes hard and needs replacing - normal, full sized pots are too big to store in there.
The main downside is that cleaning is a bit fiddly. You need to remove as much playdoh as possible at the end of play otherwise it dries and goes hard in the machine but the cutting tool is quite helpful for scraping it out.