I have owned several 'steam station' irons in the past, and this has been one of the better ones. The problem with the others I have had is that they have a metal hot water tank which eventually corrodes/fails or the boiler element blows. Also, you cannot refill them when they're hot - and they take forever to cool down, refill and heat up again. This is a very well-designed iron - it doesn't have a hot water tank. The previous reviewer, Imogen, expressed concern for the water aperture and the water 'obviously getting hot'. This is not true. The water tank is cold and drip-feeds the water into a pump and heater, so there is no danger of scalding from the tank. It also means you can fill up 'on-the-go'! Anyway, this iron heats up fast. Real fast. It turns itself off when not used for several minutes (a real boon in our household!). The steam output is strong and sole plate is smooth and durable. The handle has a nice, rubberised touch for good grip. It looks good and works well. We had our iron for 11 months when the iron's heating element went out. We did the regular descaling as prescribed in the manual, so it makes me wonder if the quality of the heating element (and anything else not in eye's view) is of durable quality. I don't know about you, but I expect to get 3-5 years life out of a product like this, not 11 months. As it is, in terms of performance, this iron is fantastic. My main concern surrounds the quality of internal components that might cause it to fail too early in its life.

this product is a lot better than all the perfect care products because it has a manual control for heating irons that are developed with auto features are no good if a person has lots of ironing to do the variation confuses the iron settings

I bought this machine with some scepticism. I had had a competitors iron previously and had a good return out of it so I decided to stay with the same kind of machine. This new one actually does more than the previous one did. But, in saying this, I find that the aperture cover for filling the tank should be a bit tighter. I don't have small children but anyone who does if a child should play with this cover it would be easy for the water to spill out if the child was determined to open it. Obviously the water is hot in the tank so it is a safety precaution. Otherwise the machine does a lovely job, and I'm impressed that it only takes 2 minutes to warm up, the last one I had took 8 minutes. Keep up the good work Philips. I also think all irons, not only steam stations, should come with an ironing shield. The sole plates of all irons get very hot and can scorch or burn some clothing types, especially man-made fibres. I use an iron easy shield but for value add the iron manufacturers could include these shields with the iron at the point-of-purchase.