Secura Stainless Steel Double Wall Electric Kettle

This kettle looks nice. It boils quickly and pours easily with no drips. The interior is one seamless stainless steel surface. The kettle is stable and stays cool on the outside. The lid is spring-loaded and feels solid. The opening is large enough for a medium-sized hand in case you want to clean the inside or boil hands. The setup instructions say to boil and discard water twice. I would recommend to do this three times, since I found the third boil still seemed a little funky. After this, the boiled water has always been clean of any unwanted taste or smell. The kettle is about 20% wider and taller than other 1.5L kettles I have owned in the past, which is not a problem, but was unexpected. The auto-off works but takes a while to activate, probably because the switch is at the bottom instead of the top. As other reviewers note, there is a small bit of plastic in the lid hinge, but it’s so small that it’s hard to see how it could cause any real water contamination. The end of the power cord isn’t held securely by the base which makes it surprisingly annoying to move the base since the cord won’t stay locked into its channel. It also somehow feels slightly too long when unwound halfway. If this kettle worked the way it did the first few weeks, I would give it 4 stars and a solid recommendation. Unfortunately, as several other reviewers have reported, after about three weeks mine started to smell like noxious burning plastic coming from the handle when the kettle was on. The stem of the on/off switch also changed from clear to cloudy, which I’d guess is related. Since this seems to be more than a one-off problem, it is hard to recommend this kettle at this time, since my #1 rule of kettles is to not burn down the house.