Admittedly, after reading many of the reviews, i was quite hesitant. However, I used Amazon rewards earned from doing surveys, so I didn't feel like paying only $7 our-of-pocket for a $45.95 item would seem so bad if this thing failed. At the last minute, based on comments about the warranty, I did look at the ICHICH brand offered, but had never heard of, despite what sounded like a far better warranty. Anyway, I have had it a couple of weeks, and it has actually helped me to sort of like the kitchen and cooking. (Most of my friends/family know I HATE the kitchen and cooking.) I did tell a friend, who is a professional cook, and he agreed good name brand. He also agreed, despite non-stick cooking surface, to use cooking spray, which I have done--except for grilled cheese, bagels, or other sandwiches, bagels, etc to griddle for which I butter the bread that goes on the cooking plate vs cooking spray. As well, it had helped to have previewed the video and learn some of the item's "quirks" to be aware of upon arrival. E.G. Green light shows up to temperature, but temp will drop when food placed, but does come back up to temp., sometimes more quickly than other times, seeming to depend on how thick the food is and if in closed cooking position. (My electric range for baking does about the same thing for a few seconds when I open the door and place food to bake.) The very first thing I cooked were hamburgers. I set to the 'well done' as per instructions for temp which is what my hubby likes. I figured I would just take mine off a little early as I like medium to medium-rare, but I got distracted. They came out perfect for his well done! I did goof with my first experience with chicken breasts which made me pay more attention to the settings! LOL! I thought I had turned the dial to high, but the chicken was taking forever; then I realized, I had not pointed the lighted end of the dial to the high temp. DUH! Even with the error, I cooked huge chicken breasts on the grill in about 15 minutes! Juicy and very good! First thin salmon filet cooked in about 10 min; next time thicker filets took about 15 min! Turkey bacon on the griddle-- watch closely. Hubby likes his really crispy. I should have taken mine off when it looked like still droopy, but the crispy was okay. Further, we always cook the entire package and freeze the leftovers to micro later for other meals/sandwiches, etc. Definitely would want to take off earlier than crispy for those not being eaten immediately! Grilled cheese and grilled ham with cheese have been PERFECT based on settings and time--on the griddle-opened. Tuna melts in hamburger rolls with cheese slice on panini using the grill plates, as I wanted the little toasted marks gave another PERFECT result. For once in my life, something actually came out looking like a photo in a magazine! Marinated pork chops were to "die" for as per grill and time given in instructions, with cover closed! In the summer, my hubby travels a lot, and I tend to not cook for just myself, mostly because the cast-iron skillet (which I LOVE), is too heavy for me to carry across our huge kitchen to get to the sink and difficult for me to scrup with serious RA. I will definitely love having this little griddler. Am using 2 to 4 times a week with cooking spray except for grilled sandwiches, such as grilled cheese for which I butter its bread. (Have not tried eggs yet, mostly because hubby cooks when we have eggs, and he won't use the griddler--doesn't like to try new gadgets! LOL) His loss. . . . BTW: Heat distribution: I used in open position for the bacon on both panels and found both sides to cook at the same timing. Would need to try something else to verify heat distribution, so my 5-star heat distribution may be biased. Temp control: knowing it loses heat when food placed and then comes back up to temp to green, does not deter my rating in this arena. I LOVE THIS GRIDDLER!ADDENDUM: I still love this gadget. I attempted to answer a question from someone who had asked if BBQ sauce could be used. As I was answering, I got a red flag, saying the link had expired--DRAT! Anyway, here is my response to if one can use BBQ sauce with this appliance: Yes! I've had excellent results using the grill plates and using teriyaki sauce or BBQ sauce. What I have done, just trying it all out is as follows: 1. The first time I just brushed teriyaki sauce onto my burger on its top, slid spatula under, and when I got to the grill, I flipped the sauced side down. This leaves the top of the burger available to brush sauce on it. (The beauty of this grill: put the cover down and you don't have to keep flipping the burgers which can cause them to dry out. Not having to flip, has given really juicy, flavorful burgers. 2. The 2nd time, I had bought a London broil and marinated it in a bowl in the refrigerator for a day and overnight. (during the day, I flipped in the bowl periodically, to make sure teriyaki was getting into both sides of the steak). I got my "pinky perfect--i.e. medium rare on grill/sear for 4 to 5 minutes. 3. BARBECUE SAUCE--with steak. I put some sauce in the bottom of a bowl, placed steak in the bowl; then coated the top. I let it sit overnight in a covered bowl. Again, used grill/sear for 4-5 minutes and got pinky perfect--i.e. medium rare. NOTE: Before I bought this grill, a friend of mine who is a professional chef agreed with me to USE COOKING SPRAY ON THE GRILL/GRIDDLE even though non-stick surface. The only time I have not used cooking spray was when I made grilled cheese, for which I melt and brush melted butter on the sandwiches before grilling. I brush melted butter on the top of the sandwich, pick up with spatula and flip to put the buttered side down on the grill first, which puts the unbuttered side up. Brush melted butter on the top, close the cover and VOILA! As much as I despise the kitchen and cooking, this little gadget has been my GODSEND! I have RA and as much as I love a cast-iron skillet, when my husband is gone, I struggle getting the skillet to the sink to wash and hard for me to scrub. Now, I don't hesitate to cook a hot meal for myself when he is gone. EASY PEEZY clean up with no scrubbing, just a dish rag, and everything cooks perfectly. BTW: I LOVE my salmon on this grill. As with the steak, I have marinated in teriyaki sauce overnight; and I have also marinated in maple syrup---Spraying cooking oil has been another 'key" to the easy cleanup after the sticky sauces! YUMMY! YUMMY! Hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy your Cuisinart grill/griddler as much as I do! Blessings! JJWe love this grill. We had a George Forman grill. We gave it away. We love this grill because it has plates that have two sides. It has 2 temperature controls, so you can control the heat for each plate. Do NOT put the plates in the dishwasher as the cleaning material eats at the coating on the plates. We easily clean the grill with two connecting sheets of paper towels in a layer of 4 of these together which we make wet and wring out the extra water. After we are done cooking and while the plates are still fairly hot, we clean the plates with these, which does an excellent job. This makes cleaning a breeze. You can use both flat plates or both grill plates at the same time or use one of each at the same time. The grill has never smoked for us. When you make hotdogs, you can smell the grill smell of grilled hot dogs. You can make all kinds of things, such as grilled cheese, eggs, pancakes, grilled sandwiches, burgers and all kinds of paninis. You can make many things as we also ordered the cookbook with it at the same time. The grill is made so you can adjust the height for the thickness of the food you are cooking. It is amazing what this can do! We highly recommend it. You have to use it fairly close to an outlet just like anything else because the laws demand how long the cord can be. The grill is worth every single penny. Always of course use utensils that will not scratch the plates. It says you can put the plates of the grill in the dishwasher but understand that dishwasher detergents pods or powders etc. will damage the plates. You can wash them by hand. We always just use the wet paper towels, and the plates are the same as brand new. Since it has dual temperature controls, you can put each plate on the same temperature or on different temperatures. You will not be disappointed with this awesome grill. We love it. We checked a ton of reviews of different grills sold and chose this one even though it cost a little bit more than some, but we chose it because we feel you get what you pay for. This grill is definitely worth the money. Don't waste your money on cheaper grills that don't have the dual controls, dual sided plates and all the things you can do with this grill and the fact it does NOT smoke! Also, it is so easy to clean. The food tastes like grilled food. We love it and highly recommend it to everyone. If people say the coating comes off the plates, then they put it in the dishwasher. It states you can do this, but understand if you do, the chemicals in the dishwasher cleaning ingredients eat at the coating and therefore it will definitely take pieces of the coating off which defeats the purpose of having a coating to keep food from sticking. Personally, they should say they are NOT dishwasher proof. The plates are so easy to clean, it is not an issue whatsoever. I clean the outside of the grill with a product called "Krud Kutter" which takes all the grease and brown discolor from the outside of the grill off of it and makes it look like brand new. I use the Krud Kutter and paper towel to clean the outside which is such an easy way to clean the outside. Using 4 layers of two paper towels connected with water on them and squeezed out to get most of the water out and roll them up into a nice roll, I use them to clean the inside of the grill while it is still hot. It makes it easy to fit in between the grill side and also keeps me from burning my hands and fingers. It makes it so easy to clean. I do NOT put the griddle pieces in the dishwasher as the detergent whether it is powder, liquid, or packets will slowly eat away at the coating on the plates. It is so easy to clean the grill the way I do. I love it as it is so easy to clean it this way. We love also that this grill does not smoke whatsoever. The hotdogs we grill tastes like grilled hot dogs and the kitchen even smells like grilled hot dogs. We love this grill for all kinds of things such as for eggs, bacon, pancakes, grilled cheese, grilled ham and cheese, hamburgers, hotdogs, salmon patties, fish patties, and we also purchased the cookbook for it which has so many amazing recipes for it! The possibilities are endless! We love it and highly recommend this grill. I also love that you can regulate the temperature on each grill separately. This would make an awesome gift as well. We use it all the time, so it stays out as we use it at least 5 times or more a week. It does not heat up our kitchen either which is a big plus! You won't be disappointed!We had the original griddler for at least 10 yrs. It served us well and we used it mostly during late fall and over the winter when BBQing wasn't an option.When I saw the the new griddler I immediately saw that they had changed some of the features that I didn't like on the original.1. The plates are now reversible from grill to flat so you don't have to store the extra set of plates.2. The grease catching system is now enclosed rather than positioning 2 cups near the edges to catch the drips, which was awkward as if they weren't positioned perfectly the grease ended up on the counter and they tipped easily if you accidentally hit them. I used to just place some paper towel on the counter at each corner to catch any drips.3. the space between the grills is wider allowing for easier clean up and the coating seems better than before.We use it often, mostly as a grill and panini press but occasionally the flat side for pancakes.All in all it is a great product and am looking forward to using it for at least another 10 years.I would have given this a higher score if it was exactly what it claims to be, but the 5-in-1 is a complete stretch.The top grill seems to have a lower temperature than the lower grill, so you really have to watch the bottom and not judge if something is done by the top. Also the bottom grill, if using to cook on directly the area towards the front of the plate is hotter than the back. Not sure why it's like that. Maybe I got a dud?Panini's are great, don't get me wrong, but if you plan on using this for the griddle function or to use the grill to make burgers etc, I'd look elsewhere. I made a bacon and egg meal using the griddle and had the temp on high, and it took forever to cook my food. Not only did it take ages to get back up to temperature, because it wasn't holding temp very well the egg I put on the griddle starting going straight into the drip tray in the back because the surface isn't completely flat to let grease get into the tray. Little disappointing because I was hoping to mainly use it for panini's and pancakes, but even pancakes, it takes too long to bother. It does get very hot, but the distribution and retention is horrible.I've used it for making steak and chicken, and while it does a decent job, it doesn't really give the meat a nice sear unless you leave it too long and dry it out.A+ for Panini's F for everything else.Have used this for a couple months now and really enjoy it. The grease trap works well, the plates are easy to clean, and it cooks my food thoroughly. Certainly a lot better than making things in a fry pan.As others have said is the top plate doesn't get quite as hot as the bottom, likely due to the whole "hot air rises" thing. They probably should have bumped up the power in the top element to compensate, though that could have caused problems when you open it flat and use both plates. It's not a huge difference, and if it bothers you a simple solution is to flip your food half-way through the cooking.Another issue is the "hot" part of each plate is more towards the middle, the edges don't get nearly the same heat, just due to where the element is under the plates: The element only starts a few cm from the edge. My guess is this was intentional as otherwise the body of the grill would get dangerously hot (not that it's exactly safe now, but I can imagine it being a lot worse). As such, you really can't get more than about 2 normal-sized hamburgers or sandwiches cooking on there at once unless you don't mind rotating them and moving them around to get them all cooked evenly. The plates are some kind of Teflon-coated metal so they do spread the heat around but again due to the laws of thermodynamics you just can't get it to be the same temperature all the way to the edge. I don't consider it a huge problem as food cooks really fast on this compared to other options, but it's something to keep in mind if you hope to make a lot of food at a time.A few other issues people should be aware of before buying this:- The top plate is rather heavy. Great for a panini press, but if you are hoping to make something like a grilled cheese sandwich you may need to stick something between the halves to prevent crushing your bread (unless you like that)- The top plate unlocks to freely rotate to ensure proper contact with food of various heights. However, this means when you go to open it the top tends to stay horizontal, which can lead to dripping fat/oil behind the unit. Solved by using a spatula or oven mitt to push the top-plate back into the "locked" position as you lift it so it keeps dripping onto the bottom plate and into the drip tray- The drip tray is not cat-proof.- The metal body of the grill gets REALLY hot; the handle is fine but you'll need oven mitts to touch any other part.Overall, great product, would buy again, but there's always room for improvements!I loved the look of this device as seen in Amazon marketplace however after receiving it I discovered it’s only for US electrical supplies. It had to be returned. I was disappointed to discover Cuisinart don’t supply a U.K. version - U.K. models are inferior in facilitiesReally struggles to maintain heat in griddle setting. Not great for frying eggs, French toast, or anything that requires a sustained frying temperature. It takes forever to get up to temperature, holds it for about 10-15 seconds and cools way down and takes several minutes to recover (frying an egg took 20 minutes to get up to heat and get it barely cooked)Works well in panini mode, grilling chicken was quick and the removable plates made cleaning easy, but thats all I'd expect to use it for from now onUPDATE: Total waste of money. Really cannot hold heat for more than a few seconds in any mode. Very disappointing, better off buying separate appliances that can do what they are supposed to