Side by Side Comparison of: Ronco vs Nesco

had one before paid more and also called ronco almost twenty dollars more from the.

I make treats for my dogs with this. Works well

would buy again

The price on this dehydrator was just too good to pass up. I wanted to start making beef jerky at home and collect some mushrooms and ginseng roots while I'm out hiking, so I bought this. It's super easy to use, super easy to clean, and has served its purpose well. If you don't plan on using a dehydrator very often, this one will more than suffice

Cooks faster than advertised. Easy to clean. Definitely buy some cheesecloth and cut it to fit. HINT: Lay the cheesecloth over one of the trays, put another tray on top of it to hold it in place, and then use a pair of scissors to cut around the edge...really makes it easy. Don't get the meat near the edges of the cheesecloth as it readily sticks to the threads and then you have to pick them off.

This is my second Ronco Dehydrator. I had one for years & love it; but sadly it was part of a bad batch (didn't find out until afterwards) and disintegrated. My mother-in-law got me a new dehydrator for Christmas 3 yrs ago (not a Ronco), and it really didn't last a full season. It works when it wants to & will shut itself off.So I decided to get myself a present, a new RONCO! I am now a happy girl again! I can also borrow extra trays from my mom; who's had her Ronco since they were a new product, brown & expensive! (At least since the late '80's to early '90's) She loves hers too!

I have ordered three others of these, they are my favorite dehydrators.. I got rid of all the other brand name ones I had and only use these nesco ones, they are fast without over heating the fruits, vegetables or other foods I put in them. We grow big gardens and I love to dehydrate a lot of it so we have it during times when we aren't growing any. These are perfect. :)

Very happy with this purchase. Only complaint is there is no way to keep everything "latched" together for storage. It's easy to get all the trays bumped and it all falls to pieces in the cabinets. If you've got tons of cabinet space this won't be a problem for you. The jerky gun worked better than I expected too. It made perfect little strips consistently. We've definitely got our money's worth with this one. Would absolutely buy again.

I bought this for my partner for Father's Day over a year ago because we had made some jerky in the oven and everyone in the family loved it. This dehydrator makes the process much simpler and faster, and the jerky is great. As soon as we got it, we tried just about everything we could think of we had on hand. I had some cans of pineapple chunks and mandarin oranges in the cabinet, and both of those dried up great, really sweet and chewy without all of the extra sugar you sometimes get in packaged dried fruit. Bananas and apples were not as popular, but I think that just our family. Last year we had an enormous amount of cherry tomatoes and we dried those and got a delicious product that's like sweet tomato raisins! I will say those took a very very long time. We have found, however, that our jerky takes much less time than is called for in recipes, so it is important to keep watching every few hours. The racks are a bit hard to clean, but I have found that if you flip the beef strips over 1.5-2hours in, you have less sticking, and slightly easier clean up. The gun for ground beef is great, and if you use the spices with it, you will end up with something that resembles a slim Jim or other packaged jerky, which is super tasty, but the seasonings do have some chemicals that are easy to avoid in strip jerky. I haven't found an alternative recipe for ground beef that I like as much yet though. All components of this kit are easy to use. If I had one wish for an additional feature it would be a timer so that when it gets late and I decide the jerky needs a couple more hours, I could go to bed '... A longer cord wouldn't hurt either. Overall, I would recommend this product to anyone wanting to dehydrate and/or make jerky on a regular basis.

While changing my eating habits, I came to realize that I would need a dehydrator. While looking through Amazon for the right one I came across the Nesco American Harvest FD-61 Food Dehydrator. This one was just what I was looking for and a perk was that it came with a jerky gun. When I first opened the box I was very surprised that they had included jerky seasoning to help me get started. The jerky gun is super easy to use and easy to clean as well. The dehydrator is also easy to assemble and easy to use. There is a guide that provides you with how to clean and care for the items and also giving helpful tips and drying times of certain foods. This is a great product especially if you are a first timer like myself.

the noise is very minimal, sounds like a bathroom fanfits about 1.5lb of jerky on all supplied trays (using ground meat and gun) . My timings were waaaaaaay off from what the instructions and reviews say. Id be able to throw 1.5 lbs in and have it done in 3 hours tops. The product is great, ive used venison, beef, turkey, pork and bison. the best combo ive done so far is Berkshire ground pork, Nesco original seasoning, red pepper flakes to taste, and a couple shots of pure Grade B maple Syrup. its insanity, you gotta try it....maybe one day ill try dehydrating something healther. but till then, thank you Nesco Meat Jerky Machine.

It took me a long time to figure out what dehydrator I wanted and where to purchase it from by I am very happy that I bought this dehydrator. It comes with pretty much everything you need to get started. The jerky gun worked great and made even strips of jerky with minimal effort. The original flavor jerky seasoning this came with tasted great. I have yet to use the other accessories but i am looking forward to trying some dried fruit and making some fruit roll ups.For reference purposes I bought 2 extra trays for mine to make 7 trays total, i was able to just barely fit 4 pounds of jerky meat give or take on all the trays. I used it a week ago to make 8 pounds of venison jerky that came out amazing in about 4 and a half hours per batch. I am impressed by how good this Nesco dehydrator warms up and how quickly my jerky was ready. The taste was great and everyone loved it.Important notice: I have done some research and found that the tray designs have been changed. They used to have notches in the center ring and from what i have read, the trays would slant upward. Now its one solid ring of plastic in the center of the tray and they slant downwards. My new dehydrator came with the new design and the 2 pack of tray expansions also had the new design.So basically, anyone purchasing a new dehydrator should be just fine with their trays and any expansions they want to add to it. The new design add a trays come with a note saying that the new ones should work just fine with the old design, for anyone who has had their dehydrator for a couple years but I have yet to have the chance to find out if this is true.Overall a great dehydrator that I would recommend to anyone looking to make some tasty jerky.

Be very gentle with the trays they will break if you're not cautious I tried to be gentle with mine but I lost one tray when trying to lift them apart it shattered

Good starter/ downfall is 1 temp..

All okay - No Issues.

Love this product so far. Yummy healthy foods made to munch on at will. Also great for making dry soups and stew mixes for later! The warranty is only down to a year (used to be lifetime warranty from ronco) but at roughly $30 its worth it to replace.

I like it

It does not take up much real estate on my counter. I dried several boxes of apple slices and pleased with the result. I also dehydrated multiple mixed veggies for a home made soup mix and it worked very well. The trays need to be rotated around as well as rotated up but that was not a problem for me. The trays were easy to clean. I am pleased with the purchase.

Love the machine, simple and does it's job well, 5 stars for the machine. Personal opinion on the jerky shooter, but it makes too thick a strip for me. It works fine, however. I give it 4 stars, you may have a different view?

So much better than my ronco. I love that it actually circulates the air and that it has different temperatures (the low worked wonderful for drying flower petals. They always ended up brown with my ronco). Only thing that is a real hassle is having to unplug every time I'm done using it. I have it set up on a "dresser" in my back room, and needing to reach behind the dresser to unplug is a major pain.

Only had this for a day. Seems like a decent product for the price. However, I couldn't agree more with one reviewer who said it needs two things, both of which seem very basic. There is no switch to turn it on or off. Instead, you have to pull the plug. I never assumed a product wouldn't have a switch. Every decent electrical product in my house has a switch so this one seems to me like a glaring oversight. Think about having to unplug your blender or hair dryer to turn it off. Also, a timer would be most helpful. Assuming some people go to bed and to work and will be away form their drying food for a number of hours. Both of these shortcomings are likely $2 options for which I think most users would gladly pay.

This dehydrator has met my expectations for the most part. Its fan and motor are relatively quiet and seem to work well. The drying trays appear well made and have been easy to clean. The jerky gun also has worked satisfactorily. My only criticism is the air temperature runs 12º F hotter than its setting (according to my Thermoworks instant thermometer)--e.g., ground beef was actually dehydrating at 172º F rather than the 160º setting I chose.Have enjoyed drying pineapple the most - both sliced cut into quarters and crushed 2 cans on a tray to make pineapple fruit rolls. Have also enjoyed both walnuts and almonds after overnight soaking and then drying. Least favorite experiments were strawberries which seem to be all seeds when dried and cherries which I found bland.I've done nuts, fruit, and jerky every week since my purchase 6 weeks ago and am glad I bought this product.

We've cut out sweets and carbs from our diet. Jerky has become one of my staple snacks. Store bought jerky is expensive and often loaded with all sorts of stuff. So I did some research and selected this dehydrator.We've made a few batches of jerky so far. One was a couple of pounds of lean ground chuck doctored with some cure and seasoning I found on my own. Following the directions, I mixed the meat with the fixings, loaded the jerky gun and plugged it in. About every half hour or so, I checked and patted down the strips with a paper towel as recommended. Good idea. About 4 1/2 hours later, I had some good jerky.My local supermarket had a deal on shoulder so I bought a bunch. Sliced it, marinated it overnight, and set it in the dehydrator. Again, I checked on it about every half hour but that was pretty much being a mother hen. I had some great jerky in about 5 hours. I layered it in paper towels and let any oils absorb for an hour and then packed it. I had a lot, so I vacuum sealed a bunch and have it in the freezer.My wife is planning on drying out some fruit and herbs this weekend.It's easy to use, pretty easy to clean, and - when you wrap the cord around the top - fairly easy to store.Looking forward to getting a lot of use from this appliance.

This is the first time I have ever had a dehydrator. So I have nothing to compare this too. I will say the product arrived on time and was undamaged. Everything that is supposed to be included seems to be there. I will say the instruction book leaves a lot to be desired. Additionally, this product comes with several jerky seasoning packets and jerky cure. This machine is a good size, but does fit comfortably on my countertop. It is made of plastic material, but that does not bother me. And as someone else stated it does state made in china on the underside of the lid. So for those who want the product totally made in the USA- I guess you are out of luck with this model.I wanted to try the machine out so I decided to try to dehydrate some fruit I had on hand. So i cut up two bananas and a mango, which each got their own tray. The machine does what it states. I took about 7 hours give or take. As I'm new to this, I had to go by several descriptions of what warrants done for these. I'm sure with more experience it will be easier for me to tell, but I did check several time during the last two hours to see what was going on. You can hear this machine when it is on, but it really is background noise- sort of like a quiet dishwasher. I did think the machine got pretty warm, when it was working. I am going to assume this is normal. The one thing the I did not think I would mind, but after using it I really do mind is the lack of an on/off button. I don't like just unplugging it as its running- the sparks fly. I think I can easily fix this by using a timer that plugs into the wall with an on/off switch. I happen to have one of these, but really how hard would it be to put an on/off switch on the machine.In general I am happy with this purchase, at least as far as my one dehydrating experiment has gone. I did buy a dehydrating book to go along with this purchase. And if this is your first experience with a dehydrator, I do think having a cookbook (i bought the dehydrating bible) to help you along is beneficial.

Cheaply made. No fan to circulate air. Does not make much noise.

Bottom is hard to clean

I need to read the instructions again. Not sure if the failure was operator error or the machine. Will try again after the first of the year.

I bought four of these for Xmas presents, left them in the original box. I took them out today and started wrapping them, the last one made rattling noise, I opened and the top tray was completely cracked. The other three that are wrapped will not know until after Christmas if trays are ok. I would like a replacement tray sent to me. Peggy Nerby_Crow.

I needed a second dehydrator to keep up with the harvest. I had seen Ronco for years on TV and thought this would be a good decision. It works just fine except that two of the trays partially melted. Not too happy with that since you only get 5 of them.

This product works fine for me. However, the big thing I want to point out is you DO need to rotate the trays every 2-4 hours. As you can see from the folks who wrote negative reviews the trays will melt if you just leave them in place for too long. I have never allowed mine to sit for more than 2-4 hours. I always re-stack and rotate them. The product does work perfectly provided that you do that. I would have given it a 5 star rating if not for the need to have to do this. Other dehydrators don't require this so... While this is priced very well and is a very good looking item in terms of appearance spending the 5-15 dollars more would allow you to have one that you don't have to babysit as much. For me... This item has worked wonderfully though. I only am able to do use it when I can be home all day though so that is the trade off. Depends on how much you want to spend but it is not a huge jump in price to get a model that doesn't need you to keep rotating the trays.ONE MORE GOOD POINT:- Unlike other dehydrators this one doesn't make any noise because it using heat and no fans.

i gave this three stars because the fruit roll trays don't fit properly. they allow liquid to just roll off. i had a mess. this is the second Nesco i purchased. the first one was a little more expensive but only lasted two years. when this one breaks down i will probably buy a different brand.

I love the dehydrator. I used it many times with great success; however, seller indicated the trays were dish washer safe. Unfortunately, the base warped in the dishwasher. Trays no longer sit flat, so circulating air will escape.

Product came fast as stated. The two fruit trays that came with this were stuck together so one ended up cracked when taking them apart. I followed the suggestion of dipping apples in a citrus juice before dehydrating so they wouldn't turn brown; 1/2 the apples made it the other half were stuck to the trays....not sure what happened, maybe too thin. Took longer than expected to dray to crispy. Mango dried well.

Nothing spectacular here. It does in fact dehydrate foods and does it fairly well. The instructions leave a bit to be desired though. The parts of the unit are not identified and their use is not clearly defined anywhere. Only thru reading the recipes does one grasp the idea of how the roll-up trays and the fine trays are to be used. I use it for drying spices/herbs. Rosemary, basil thyme, and sage all dry per chart. Oregano took over 4 days beyond chart value at recommended temp setting. Along with this unit came a jerky gun. There were 5 or 6 unmarked packets (different sizes) of seasoning ? for this purpose. Unable to use as nothing more than a production code is present and contents are not identified.

Background: My brother has had one of these for a few years and it works great. I decided to buy one since I have a large garden and didn't want to tie his up all season. I wanted a slightly larger model so I purchased an FD75 from Amazon (also reviewed) When I got it I loaded it up with bananas. They took several days instead of 12 hours. Thinking I might have done something wrong I sliced up some onions and garlic nice and thin. Again, several days... I asked my brother if I could use his to run some performance comparisons between the two. His heated up fast (10-15 minutes) and stayed reasonably well within the thermostat setting. Mine never got up to max temperature and consistently stayed 10-15 degrees cooler than whatever setting I had it on. Fine, a defect. Amazon made it easy to return and sent me a replacement. The replacement FD75 did the same thing, though it was even a little worse. Boxed up and sent back the same day, and Amazon gave me a refund since they didn't want to chance sending a third defective unit.I ordered the FD61 the day I returned the second FD75 and tested it upon arrival - again using my brother's as a benchmark. His heated up to 155d in about 15 minutes, mine took over an hour and struggled to get past 150d at all. Both FD61s... What changed?Will this work for what I bought it for? Sure, but not in the way it was designed. I'll need to determine what setting will achieve the desired temperature rather than use the reference settings on the machine. Since it doesn't seem capable of reaching the 155d necessary for making jerky I probably can't use it for that at all. Useable and does do a nice job, but the quality is questionable.Like my review of the FD75 says: Test it BEFORE you put food in it. (the other review explains how I tested and what the results were)

Love it! We've been working ours nonstop this past month: jerky, cucumbers, potatoes, carrots, onions, potato soup, tomatoes, herbs, onions, apples, oranges, banana chips, lemon, lime, fruit leather and more. We bought extra trays, tray guards and fruit trays as well. Works incredibly well, we ought this to make our own MREs for camping. We were able to convert 2 cases of cucumbers into chips in 3 days. Best dehydrator I have ever owned!UPDATE: I really did love this dehydrator...until it melted down, destroying the entire unit, a batch of jerky and my kitchen wall due to the subsequent fire. Buyer beware

The dehydrator works great, but for the 5-Plastic Trays that's a different story. The trays are made of a clear, brittle plastic. When I first used the dehydrator I could hear the plastic expand, and when I turned it off I could hear it contract. After the first use, I was dehydrating sweet potatoes for our dogs, I found several cracks in the plastic trays. Another time I made beef jerky, and afterwards I found more cracks. Luckily I purchased the Product Protection Plan, which I will use to either replace the damaged trays, or the entire unit if that's not possible.

It was great in the beginning, but soon the temperature must be off because I noticed that the trays were cracking. The more I used the machine the more they cracked and even started melting. I had purchased the Square Trade warranty for the product and after numerous attempts to get the items replaced, Square Trade told me I had to deal with Ronco (the manufacturer) because it was still under the 1 year mark. So then after numerous attempts at getting a resolution with Ronco, I was told through emails that they would replace it but I would have to pay $10.90 for postage and handling. I am very irate, I don't think I should have to pay anything, it is a problem with the product itself. Why should I pay one more penny? I already paid for the Square Trade warranty that did me no good.

It melted the first time I used it.

Hard to clean . Not very warm .

Came with no cover and the plastic guard over the heating element melted on the first use. Will return. It did a great job on my dog treats with organic chicken breasts....dogs love them better than anything I have tried and I know the dog snacks are not from China and will not kill them.

This dehydrator is not worth purchasing. Things to look for in a decent appliance are: circulation fan, high enough wattage to dry items before you die of old age, temps up to 165 degrees in order to dry meats safely.This machine has none of these. You will need to manually rotate trays for even drying, at 125 watts it will take far to long to dry anything, it only gets warm enough to do meats.... spend a few more dollars and get a decent dehydrator!

While the functionality and usability of this unit is great the quality is very poor. After less than 6 months of use the plastic cover on the inside top of the unit (covers the fan blades) have begun to crack and break off as the unit is running. This unit has never been dropped or mistreated, but seems to be deteriorating just from use. The plastic grates have also begun to crack and break. It is very disappointing and seems clear I will need to order a new unit right away as this one is quickly becoming unsafe to use. It's very disappointing. I would save yourself the trouble with this one and look elsewhere for a dehydrator.

Bought this as a Christmas gift for my father 8 months ago. We've used it twice and it worked wonderfully both times! Unfortunately on the third use, a fuse blew. After contacting Nesco, they informed me they will not distribute replacement fuses to the public. I understand I can purchase replacements through Amazon, but I'm still dissatisfied that we only got to use this product twice before malfunction.

Was great for about 6 months....looking for a more reliable brand!

This seems to be a nice dehydrator. I doesn't think it was noisy at all like several people complained about. I thought, surely this can't be THAT bad! However, i have to admit, cleaning really is difficult and all i made was zucchini chips and beef jerky. It was the marinate on the jerky that was hard to get off. I hand washed, them i soaked it in the bathtub like i read others do, and finally just put them in the dish washer.The zuchini chips did not get crispy like i was hoping for, yet the jerky came out great. I really wanted it gor veggie snacks, but I'm not making any more. Had i talked with my friends who Jane dehydrated veggies, i wouldn't have gotten this. It IS good i think I'd you have a large garden to save your veggie crop and put them in soups and stews to rehydrate, which i don't eat or want to mess with. So if that's your goal to use for winter soups, i think b this would suit your needs fine.I can't imagine making fruit roll ups or anything messy to clean up those trsys, so i would pay more attention to what ppl ate sayong about clean up unless you want to do all the extra work for cleaning. I thought it was alot of work slicing veggies...i didn't even bother finishing to dehydrate the carrots i sliced up after i saw the finished products of the zuchini.

This product was advertised with the jerkey gun however my dehydrater came by its self the gun was not in the box

The first dehydrator of this model we ordered never worked. We returned it right away and Amazon Customer Service was great - efficiently processing our return and getting us a new dehydrator. The second dehydrator worked well for a handful of jerky making sessions. But this weekend it quit on us in the middle of dehydrating goose jerky. We had to finish the jerky up in the oven and are not interested in purchasing another Nesco dehydrator. We will continue to use racks in the oven to dehydrate until we can afford to purchase an Excalibur!

purchased 12/26/2015 - trays fell apart as soon as I started using - called Ronco and I could not remember when I purchased and they refused return - they could have checked with Amazon but they did not - I threw away broken trays - major safety hazard - I would like replacement no return - very disturbed - Dave Hawkins

Update: April 3rd 2017, POS, not worth buying, I have had mine now since July, 2016, trays have melted, called RONCO they want me to pay for a replacement. That is just BS. Buy a different brand. I need a new machine now, I still need the machine, I need to make treats for my dog. .............Made sweet potato chips for my dogs yesterday and I am making bananas today in it. Works great and fast. My dog has allergies, finding him treats is hard, he can only have duck and potato or sweet potato. This means now I can make his sweet potatoes to eat. A lot cheaper than buying him treats. Probably be able to give him other vegetables too, like carrots and green beans.

Functions well for drying fruit, but it's design that allows all juices to leak down onto and bake onto the heating element is extremely poor design. I would not buy this one even for my enemies!

Big flop! I had to click at least one star to be able to comment. Trays melted with first use. Thought maybe I did something wrong-NO. Just junk. No temp setting to adjust. Wrote to Ronco on April 1 and didn't even get an apology, comment or anything except a confirmation my email was received. I have been checking my email (and my spam) for a response. Nothing......Here are a couple of pictures I sent to Ronco.

How do products like this actually make it to production/market???Can we continue to make things any CHEAPER? I used to have one of these for a couple of years and experienced ZERO problems with that unit. Gave it away at one point, and then bought this as a replacement. Two of the trays have literally melted from the heat after only TWO uses...I hope RONCO goes out of business.

My wife and I bought this hoping to use it to dehydrate veggies, fruits, and make beef jerky. It works great for dehydrating, but the plastic trays are terrible. After a couple of weeks' use, the trays started to split and melt and fall apart. Normally, I'd chalk it up to "wear and tear" but to replace the trays, each tray costs $10! With the unit coming in at $40-$50, replacing all of the broken trays would be the cost of the entire unit.I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. Once the trays and all that are beyond the point of no return, I will replace the dehydrator with an Excalibur. Seems to be the better brand.

Came in a generic box with nothing to keep it from shifting. Some of the parts were broken.

Did not work !!!!

Used 1 time and everything was fine. Used a second time and the fan does not work. Now I must ship to the manufacture at my cost and wait. Purchased this for the good reviews, it certainly wasn't the cheapest. Stay away and find another brand.

I was really excited about this dehydrator when I first got it a year ago and tonight it just stopped working in the middle of dehydrating jerkey...these things should last more than a year. Not acceptable. I was also becoming skeptical about the #7 plastic. Maybe bpa free, but doesn't mean it's not toxic. I will be replacing with a different brand and hopefully one that is stainless and will last more than a year.

Worked the first time I used it without any problems. 2 weeks later I plugged it in after loading it and the motor was dead. Would not turn on.

It was delivered yesterday. I only used 2 trays to dry some apples. It worked for 8 hours and died. 8 hours. Obviously I'm returning it... And yea, it's pretty loud and there's no "off" button.