Mortmum24

My Favourite Toy – My husband gave me a choice between a new digital camera and an iPad last Christmas. I figured that my existing camera would do me for now - I wanted the iPad 2 to complement my…

iPhone 4, to make the most of the iCloud functions on both.

Initially, I was mainly going to buy various cookbook apps for it, aside from adding to my music collection, having bought a specially-made Belkin frame from the Apple Store which mounts onto the wall; the iPad clicks into it magnetically.

However, aside from playing music on it, whilst cooking from recipes via those apps, I have found it the most popular gizmo in our house where the entire family is concerned!

The great part of it is, of course, that it is always on - just lift the magnetic cover and you're online! My husband and kids use it almost as much as I do - and it's very handy to look anything and everything up during discussions where an argument about facts or history has to be confirmed.

It's easy to use, and the apps that can be loaded onto it are so diverse that there is something to suit everyone, and being so light and portable, it's perfect when travelling.

My favourite indulgence now is to stay longer in bed because I can read the newspaper via my iPad app :-)

I also love that my notes and photos automatically transfer from the phone to the iPad, or vice versa, via Wi-Fi.

In fact, the only problem I have with this wonderful tablet is that the Apple Store staff talked me into the 32GB version, where I really needed the 64GB one, as it turns out, with everything I have on it now! It's always on, everything looks great on it, and it works exceptionally well. A USB socket would have been great!

The Perfect Fridge/Freezer – For 13 years we battled a double door Maytag fridge/freezer which broke down at least once each of those years, but we put up with it because of the limited fridge space in our…

kitchen.

At this start of the year, when the compressor gave up, we finally gave up on the Maytag. Then, while relying solely on our old spare General fridge, we started researching which refrigerator would fit into that specific space and give us a similar capacity to the old Maytag.

The choices for those necessary measurements were limited, but I liked what I read about a few different fridges, especially the French Door ones. And the LG GM-B208SS model particularly interested me.

Once at Harvey Norman, I also liked a similar fridge made by Electrolux for around the same price, but, while its shelving options and the included drawers were very, very nice, it had a significantly lower capacity in both the refrigerator section and the freezer part in comparison to the LG.

For a family, a larger capacity is usually the deciding factor and so we bought the LG.

And I am exceptionally pleased with that decision. It's super-quiet and very efficient, as well as being a very attractive fridge, visually.

The shelving took only a few minutes to decide how to set out - and seven months later, I haven't had any need to alter anything. The same with the door shelves. There is also a sliding drawer that can be popped onto the bottom of a shelf, which I find very useful for keeping all my dried fruit and nuts for baking. The fridge section features two generously-sized crisper drawers with humidity controls, and there is a dairy bin built in on the inside of the right-sided door.

One great benefit with the French Doors is that I can now fit in large platters if I need to, without any difficulty in getting them in and out - something I could never do in the double-door fridge.

The freezer drawer is very easy to pull in and out, and has an upper sliding basket drawer, above the main dual-sectioned main drawer.

One of my favourite features of this refrigerator is the 'ice plus' part of the temperature control panels, which can be used to quickly freeze something, if needed; it works quickly and incredibly well.

There is an alarm that alerts you if either door or the freezer drawer is left open for more than 1 minute, and will repeat every 30 seconds until the door is shut. I do wish the alarm was a little louder as it would be useful to hear it from another room, but it's certainly audible in the near vicinity of the appliance. I love it! Aside from working perfectly, looking good, and being well set out, it's also so easy on my back - no stooping to see what's on bottom shelves of the fridge :-) Ideally would have liked more drawers within the freezer, and a longer warranty period.

Rather Disappointing Helper – When I was given the Samsung Navibot last year - Samsung's top of the range robotic vacuum - I was so excited! Here was an appliance that promised to take over the daily vacuuming…

chore for me - who wouldn't be excited?!

My husband and I had checked out all the robotic vacuums available, and this was the most efficient on the market, as well as the most visually appealing - but also the most expensive at $999!

The Harvey Norman sales guy demonstrated each of the better robotic vacuums to us, and this Samsung did seem impressive. He assured us that this was ideal for anyone with pets, even households like ours with three Golden Retrievers and a couple of longhaired cats. Checks online confirmed that this robot was specifically designed and recommended for pet owners, and online forums seemed to be in agreement that it was better than other makes of robotic vacuums where picking up of pet hair is concerned.

It has a bagless dust bin with a reasonable capacity for daily vacuuming, which is easy to pull out and empty. It also features an outlet on the top which can be flipped open for a mainstream vacuum hose to facilitate vacuuming out the dust and hair inside the bin for a quick empty - this is rather a nifty feature that I do like very much.

It comes with two 'virtual guards' which are 'boxes' that take two 'D' cell batteries each. These work as a barrier or fence and can be placed anywhere that you don't want the robot to go near - e.g. I leave one to keep it away from the dogs' water bowls, and one to protect the vacuum from falling down a step.

The robot has a 'home base' to sit up against for re-charging, which naturally needs to be close to a power outlet. It also comes with a remote control which is necessary for operating the appliance, and which sits neatly in a holder on the side of the charging base.

While the vacuum has a 2 year warranty, it is surprising and rather disappointing that Samsung only gives a 6 month warranty for its battery.

The Navibot has various cleaning modes: auto, spot, max (continues until the battery is almost depleted), manual mode, edge mode (have found this pretty inefficient), scheduled cleaning mode (set the time to clean automatically at the specified time), and daily cleaning mode (cleans every day at the specified time). It also has a recharging setting, whereby the robot can be sent back to its base, which it also does automatically when it has run long enough to require recharging - mine is not always sure how to get itself back, however, and can spend quite a deal of time just going around and around looking for it, until I tire of that and return it manually.

Supposedly the vacuum does 'visionary mapping' of your home, using the shape of the ceiling as a guide to identify the area to be cleaned via the camera on top, and it then determines the best way to clean every section of the floor. Sounds good - but it's not really what I have found. Mine seems to forget the shape from day to day, and often turns itself off after cleaning just a section of a room, rather than cleaning the entire room and then moving on to clean the rest of the house. Or it will clean a room or two and then think that's it for the day, despite plenty of battery charge remaining.

It is supposed to sense furniture and stay clear of it, but it often seems to become stuck up against lounge chairs and such, so that I have to go and move it and re-start it. It should also sense larger objects, such as an old Golden Retriever, and one would expect it to stay clear of such obstacles, but no, the poor dog's tail has been suctioned a few times, including once when she tried to escape the robot whilst her tail was stuck in it ... but that's another story!

I have also found that, even though I always run around with a broom to get up the bulk of the animal hair before starting the robot, the Navibot doesn't pick up all the hair by any means, and often dirt is swept up by the side brushes but then spread around, rather than suctioned up.

Despite cleaning the robot after every use, and only running it a few times a week rather than daily, it ceased working just two months after I received it - the motor had burnt out and had to be replaced. The novelty had worn off it by the time our Navibot returned home again, but it was used around once a week until it stopped working six months later and just showed a row of '5's along its display, which the Samsung phone consultant informed me meant there was something wrong with its sensor.

So, back it went to the repairers, although we didn't get around to taking it to the repair place for another couple of months. It has returned home now, but is emitting a bit of a burnt smell at times and still prefers to do smaller areas and then just stop, until I re-set it each time. It makes me wonder how long it will last - just until the warranty runs out???

Perhaps it would be better on carpets - we only have hard flooring - and perhaps its marketing should state that it's okay for a pet, not pets plural!

The best thing is that it is relatively quiet - our cat who is petrified of other vacuums isn't afraid of this one, and the other cat will try to play with the side brushes as the robot passes by him! - and it is better than nothing at all. I'm glad we didn't buy it ourselves, but it shows that having a vacuum do all your work for you and doing it completely efficiently is still some time off! It helps vacuum to a limited degree, and it's not overly noisy. Expensive for an appliance that really isn't that efficient at what its marketed for doing.

An appliance the whole family will love! – I just love this little appliance! Purchased a few weeks ago to replace a milk frother that stopped heating the milk (Aldi), this not only lives up to my expectations of such an…

appliance, it far surpasses them! It creates thick, delicious froth from whole or light milk for my husband's coffee, and using a different button, it heats milk for the kids' (and my!) hot chocolate - it can also put a nice froth onto those hot chocolates, if preferred. Even better, this machine also mixes in the chocolate powder as it heats the milk. Making a drink is so simple and easy: just pour in the milk, add a sachet of drinking chocolate, put the lid on and push the middle button. The milk goes into a jug (which holds enough milk for a mug-full) and this jug sits on a neat and attactive separate base. On the base, there is also a third button for mixing iced coffee. I particularly love that the jug is so very simple to clean; the non-stick coating ensures that nothing sticks to the inside of the jug, and drinks pour out easily - I keep a small silicone spatula handy to scrape out all the froth each time, for maximum drink enjoyment! There is a little disc to pop into the bottom of the jug for frothing, and another for mixing (both of which store underneath the appliance magnetically), but I have found great success by using the frothing disc for both the milk to top coffees and our hot chocolate drinks. These discs are easy to interchange (the first few times, they were a little difficult to remove, but that might have been my technique) and very easy to clean. The temperature of the hot chocolates is just right, so with one of these machines in the kitchen, families will enjoy the cosy benefits of winter, and the frothing ability will suit coffee lovers year-round! It makes wonderful drinks and froth. A four minute interval is necessary between making each drink, so making cups for an average family of four takes a while.

Nice Compact Coffee Machine – I don't drink coffee myself but my husband does, so I like to make him regular cups as he works from home - I love the smell of freshly brewed coffee, despite not liking the…

taste!

Some coffee machines take a bit to clean afterwards, but this one is so very simple. I love that the coffee is self-contained in the little pod so the clean-up after each coffee session is minimal, and it smells great while it's pouring into the cup.

We've had quite a few other machines in the past but this is my favourite so far: it takes up so little space, is so easy to keep clean, and apparently produces a great cup of cofee, with a very affordable range of coffee flavours to choose from.

The only draw-back has been that the cleaner and de-scaler mentioned in the handbook are not available in Aldi stores, which seems pretty stupid marketing. However, supermarkets and appliance stores seem to have a few options that work fine on this machine.

I did have the problem that others here have mentioned about the pod dropping straight through, but that hasn't happened since I've become more used to the machine, and I suspect that the problem is linked to how the handle is moved.

Buying the milk frother was a terrific idea, as it works exceptionally well, and is so cheap! - and it makes wonderful hot chocolates for the kids and me too :) Easy to store and clean; works exceptionally well, especially for such a relatively cheap coffee machine. Our local Aldi doesn't always have the pods available - and the mixed flavours tin that my husband prefers is only available occasionally. A hot chocolate pod would be a great idea too.