Side by Side Comparison of: Weston vs Freshware

Great buy. works wonderful. I mostly use it to slice roast beef. Slices thin without tearing the meat.

I have had no problems with the unit whatsoever. I have been cutting London broils and bottom round roast to make jerky and also cutting boneless hams to make ham jerky I wish I bought a slicer like this 25 years ago. What took me 2 hours two hand slice 10 pounds of jerky last week took me 15 minutes with the slicer and that was being very cautious due to it being new to me. The unit runs very smooth it has no quirks whatsoever that I can find the surfaces are very smooth and clean up very well. I have not tried anything hard like she's where some people say they have problems with that but I don't expect that a slicer price that this budget would cut through a gummy products like cheese effortlessly. The hands that I did cut up or semi Frozen and I did that on purpose so they would not leak water or the juices I should say, all over the place it sliced through the hams send me Frozen effortlessly. I would recommend this for any amateur cook to add to their kitchen collection

Gave this to my husband for Christmas! He was very happy because I found one even bigger than he could find when he was looking! ;0) Men like powerful tools, even power tools/appliances for the kitchen! :0) He said with wide eyes, "That's practically a commercial meat cutter!" Lol It is heavy duty! We haven't used it yet. I,'ll update when we do. I see LOTS of beef jerky in our future! Lol

I love this food slicer, it has a 9 inch blade that is large enough to slice large roasts. It is very easy to clean, and has a powerful motor to go through hard cheese. I have used this on so many things from roast beef to sliced eggplant. It goes through everything like butter.I am actually thinking of ordering another one for my sister. I think a food slicer is a must for any kitchen that cooks for a family. I have tried to slice roast beef with a regular electric knife, and I can never get it as thin as this food slicer could. There are so many other ones out there that don't have as large as a blade as this one, or as strong as a motor. So I think this one is good for the money.

Great quality slicer. We smoke all of our own lunch meat and this was perfect for what we needed to slice thin meat. Would recommend!

I'ts been more than a year that i own this machine, at first i was skeptical about it because of bad reviews, i'm glad i decided to buy it, i use it every 2 weeks mostly on ham blocks for sandwich,stills runing smooth as the day i first used it, cannot be easier to clean just twist remove the blade locking center cap with a coin and carefully pull the blade out, as for the back and forth movement base just tilt to clean the bottom and back, i always put a little cooking oil on the rod where it is attached before using,and it just goes smooth smooth smooth, i have never pushed it more than the 15 min continuos operation cause the manual says so, but other than that it is a well built sturdy kitchen appliance, if you just want a self cleaning machine or if you want to run a meat deli business on it is a different story, but for the home......is more than perfect!!

Great chopper. Works great on onions, carrots and potatoes. The only thing to remember is to cut the vegetables to size. I quarter potatoes and onions before chopping. I cut carrots into 3 inch long pieces.The only issue I had is that I left it on the stove top one time and the warm air that vented from the oven warped the container. I was rather surprised the plastic was that easily warped. The lid still fits the bottom, with a little difficulty, and the sides are warped out and there is no way to fix this. It is easy to clean in the sink.

This is perfect kitchen appliance to make Pica de Gallo, easy and quick!

This has made cooking prep so much easier! Honestly, this has to have been one of my best purchases because of how efficient and quick it has made meal prep. When I would cook for guests, I would spend hours chopping bell peppers, tomatoes, and onions (onions being the worst of all because it would be in tears by the time I finished). Ever since I have received this chopper, I only spend 10 minutes on preparing all of the vegetables. The only bad part about chopping onions is removing the skin. That's all!The blades are extremely sharp and chop with ease. To make it easier on your arm I would recommend cutting things like tomatoes and onions into four pieces so that you don't have to apply too much pressure to have them chopped.I also love the slicer. It has a thickness control that allows me to slice extremely thin, yet perfect, pieces of anything I want. Just the other day I sliced a bunch of beats for a salad. And the layers were A LOT THINNER than I would ever be able to achieve with a knife.I am extremely happy with this and it has saved me so much time! This is one of my go to's now when I recommend to others what is needed in the kitchen!

I love this chopper. I bought it for about $15 and thought I'd give it a go.I cook a lot and have started to make a lot more vegetables - while I know how to use a knife, this is just so easy and quick and uniform.Things I have diced which have been easy:eggplantonionscucumberzucchinijalapenosgarlicgreen peaspeppersThings that haven't worked for me:unseeded tomatomushroomsI am looking a buying another one as either a gift or back up

OMG! I love this thing! I had recently bought one of those mini-choppers but found them a pain to put together and take apart to wash and was actually cutting vegies myself rather than use it. PLUS, you could only put small pieces in at a time. But this chopper is too cool! One swift press and you get chopped onions, carrots, whatever you want chopped. Plus there is a blade for cutting potato fries too. Trust me, these blades are sharp! When I first got it, I went to wash it good and cut myself. But I just love it. Just rinse it out real quick and put away and it is ready next time you want to cut something quickly. This is one item you WILL use, not just store away in the cupboard! :)

After researching the different options available here on Amazon, I decided to get this one and I am very happy with my choice.So far, I have only used the attachment shown on the picture, since I have been dicing onions, potatoes, and peppers. No more crying while cutting the onions, since I only have to peal them and cut them once or twice (depending on the size) before placing them on the chopper. Can go from one item to the next and mixed them well in the reservoir. It certainly minimizes the work and the mess.I have learned that it works best for potatoes if the skin is facing down.Seems sturdy enough for what I do with it. Easy to clean. The little comb works as intended, making it easy to clean the particles that might get stuck on the lid/pusher part.

works well! excellent for size and performance in home. Works smooth made well and does not have a serrated slicing wheel nice clean slicing! Besides easy to clean and store away.

I bought this to use mostly for processing my big game animals during hunting season. I have used it to slice lunch meat a few times but mostly jerky from venison. I wasn't expecting commercial quality, so for the price I paid it does a decent enough job. One issue with the design is the slide that rides on the bar is a little loose or sloppy, so it binds up a little here and there. Not that big of a deal for me, I can work through it. Never tried cheese or bread so can't comment on that. For my use it does what I need it to do.

Worked good, but I think a serrated blade would work better trying to cut semifroze meat for jerky.Strips were straight to a certain point then the tapered blade would thin it out. Hope they have a serrated blade.

I use this unit for slicing homemade Canadian Bacon, Corned beef and beef Brisket. It does everything I need it too.It will not produce razor thin slices but when your feeding hungry people who needs razor thin.This unit is very easy to clean. The plastic locking plug that releases the blade looks to be the only part that will wear out before its time.

This is my first slicer so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but it does exactly what I wanted, it slices meats and is easy to clean.

I use the slicer to slice cooked briskets. I researched many of these lower priced non-commercial slicers. I can not afford to buy the commercial Hobarts, etc that typically cost $1,500.00 - $3.000.00 (~$700.00 used). After reading a ton of reviews on the under $200.00 slicers I found this one to have the best reviews so I purchased the Weston. I use it to slice brisket for a mobile catering unit and catering jobs. The motor is a bit slow but strong enough to cut more than the deli meats and cheese that others have reported having problems when using non-Weston units priced in the same <$200.00 range. I typically cut about 4 x 15lbs briskets every 3 to 4 days and I have had no problems. I just wish it would come apart better for easier cleaning of all the fat left from the briskets. The cleaning would be much easier on deli meats and cheese. It's worth the money.

Best chopper I have ever used. Blades are very sharp and change very easily. Not hard to clean, I just hand wash. It is great except the rubber storage cover came warped and has never fit correctly. Was not going to send it back just for that so I just dump everything into another container. I have used it for several months to and cut fruit, veggies and onions and there are no residual smells. Tip---the faster you close the top the smoother the cut and all the foods easily falls into the tray.

Use it almost every day and has not let me down yet. Been using for over 2 months now and I cant remember life without it!Pros:Cutting vegetables is no longer a 30 minute chore. 3 minutes and your all done!Can easily disassemble the whole product to make washing a bit easier.Comes with a small cleaning comb toolHad a lid that turns this into tupperware!ConsThe item is a bit hard to clean as food tends to get stuck in between the blades and the top portion. I found that soaking the blades and top half in soapy hot water made it much easier to clean.Sometimes its a little difficult to get the top portion onto the container half of the unit which is a bit annoying. A little more clearance is needed to make it a bit easier to attach.Overall I'd give this a 4.5 stars. Money well Spent!

Nice, sharp blades and easy to clean. It's a bit different than the previous chopper I had and took me awhile to get used to, but I'm satisfied overall. You need to use a nice, sharp "slamming action" to get an efficient cut. This is particularly true on a softer item like a tomato. My only major complaint is that it would be nice to have a screen with a finer dicing option.

I bought one in April 2014 and used it about once a week till it broke in Feb 2015. Now trying to decide whether to buy the same one again (even though it inexplicably became $10 more expensive) or get a different brand. Pros: easy to clean with the little plastic cleaning tool included; versatile with the different size blade inserts; worked very well at chopping all sorts of veggies without making them pulpy. Cons: not very heavy duty as it couldn't handle thick or hard veggies like raw carrots without prepping them into thinner chunks first, that's probably what eventually broke ours. When I say "broke", I mean that one of the plastic "hinge" areas broke off at the 8 month point; which left it unbalanced and harder to press, but we still kept using it until the 10 month point when the entire white plastic lid cracked. Overall it was a good buy and very useful kitchen tool for almost a year, but I am still undecided about buying it again at the higher price.

This chopper is great. I use it frequently to make chopped vegetables. I even use it to "dice" carrots (after I slice them into planks). It's much faster than using a food processor because to dice in a food processor, you have to do a significant amount of slicing (carrots and other vegetables) to make the sticks necessary for the processor to dice them for you. A lot of work to have the food processor do the last step, not to mention a lot of clean up for that small bit of functionality.I use the chopper for carrots, celery, red/green peppers, olive slicing, squash, etc. Clean up after all the chopping is pretty easy. We have a dishwasher, but I hand wash this only. Soap, rinse, and let dry. The only issue here is making sure you have all of the material out of the "fingers" that push the food through the grates. They provide a comb-type tool to clean these out. A little bit of work, but not much (I would hate to lose this tool!).The only issue I have is with "soft" fruit. I usually try to push it through the grates by hand as the lid tends to smash the fruit through, but this seems like it would be an issue with any type of "push through" chopper (the reason for 4 stars instead of 5).Overall, very satisfied.

It works great. However, don't be fooled when they say it is easy as 1 2 3... It requires little more effort than I thought it will take to dice or chop a tomato slices. When you close the lid to chop, dice or slice, you really need to push down hard and swift. Also, the blades looks and feels very thin and flimsy as if it will break on first try... Also, you definitely need to precut your items small enough to fit within the blades.Besides that everything else looks great. The whole container is designed and built solid. Believe me it is not going to break even if you drop it. It even comes with measurement on its side. Needless to say that it definitely will cut down on your preparation time.

I bought it to slice bacon, it does not have enough throw to fit bacon between the blade and slider. I never used it but it looked OK, bought it specifically for bacon.

I used this to cater a wedding reception and it did help speed up food preparation but the blade grabs the meat or cheese that you're slicing and spins it around quite often. I think the blade doesn't spin quite fast enough and the spikes used to hold the food in place are too short and too dull to hold the food securely.

We like this food slicer just fine. It is pretty easy to use and to clean. Our only complaint is that it doesn't really slice the meat thin. Once you try it gums up pretty quickly. The thinnest slice we do is about 1/8"... and we do that seldom. We probably should have made a bigger investment so that we could get the thin sandwich cuts, but for the cost this slicer is not bad.

Has a weak motor which causes the blade to slow significantly as soon as anything but soft lunch meat hits it.

I knew that this meat slicer would not be like the commercial slicer I used in the deli. However, I was hoping that it would be a bit more user friendly. I almost returned the item after trying to slice meat from the refrigerator. The meat holder is a useless piece of plastic. The teeth that are supposed to hold the meat in place are not long enough to hold anything. I ended up using my hand (even though I don't recommend this practice as the blade is extremely sharp and you may cut yourself). I decided to give it a second try with partially frozen meat and this time the slicer did a better job of slicing down to the last portion. It made uniform slices for the jerky I was making. The clean up is quick and easy. I was able to get to all of the areas that were exposed to the meat. I wouldn't try cutting cheese on this unless you have the muscles to hold it in place. Once I got the hang of it, slicing slower and pushing the meat toward the blade it worked for my purposes and the cost was within my budget. I will continue to use the slicer.

Slicer is slow & noisy. Blade is heavy and dangerous to clean. (I use a potholder to grab the blade. It comes with a small rubber/plastic slide that you can grab it from, but it would be too easy for it to fall off while handling). The clear plastic food holder has little spikes/nubs that don't hold meat real well. Slicer motor gets hot quickly. I got through about four apples, and had to turn it off for a few minutes to cool. We have had our slicer for about a month. We have sliced apples, corned beef, and a beef brisket. Kinda afraid to try anything else. I guess it is an okay slicer for occassional usage. If you plan to do a lot of slicing like me...anticipating lots of veggies and stuff from the garden this year..you might want to look over a few others. I know that is what I will be doing. I would have been a bit happier paying about half or less, of what I paid for this model.

I like the sizes of the inserts, good for cutting veggies for soups or salads. Didn't really like that the blades were not as sharp as I hoped for. But it does include a little "comb" that makes it easier to clean out pieces left in the cutter.

Overall I rate this 3 stars....The cheese slicer insert broke on it's first use. The blades broke and need to made from a heavier gauge steel...Both dicing inserts for onions and veggies are still intact after a few months of use but they seem to be dulling after every use and making the process more difficult each time I use it.I would not purchase again and will look for something more substantial next time.

I have a different product very simliar to this that I was trying to replace, and this didn't quite do the job. Its functional, and I continue to use it, but I don't like how this hinge works - its feels less solid/stable and could break in the future. I also don't like how the lid comes off of the tub below when you are applying pressure to the item getting cut up. I do like how many unique cutters there are (but some of them are flimsy), and the option to use it like a mandoline, and the extra big tub below. Just a few changes to make it more solid would make a world of difference.

Cons: onions, potatoes and similar veggies have to be sliced in 5-6 pieces and then place on the chopperCleaning is hard so everyday use is not possible when you don't have enough time although they give a small plastic to remove the trapped vegetable piecesThe smaller grid chopping blade sometimes doesn't work even if you cut thinner slicesPros : the slices and grater are smoothIf chopping vegetables bigger batches, the item is usefulThe lid provided with the box makes it easier for storage and thus saves some time

Extremely hard to clean--especially the grid-shaped dicer "blade" (not all that sharp). Relatively flimsy, but not too bad. I have to treat it with kid gloves or I'm sure it's gonna break. I have to cut my veggies down smaller so it doesn't break. When I do that it works better, so it does have some use for me. It's not big enough to handle large onions, so I have to peel off a couple of layers and use them for something else. It can't cut through thin onion layers well anyway. I spend so much time pushing them through the little squares manually that I could have just chopped them with a knife faster. Same thing with tomatoes--the blades are not sharp enough to cut the skin. The problem for me is that my hands don't work well (fibromyalgia/carpal tunnel) so it's dangerous for me to chop. At least this is safer than using a knife and I can still do some of the chopping myself. With my problems chopping, this is useful for me, even with its problems, so I will always have one around, at least until I can find a better product for the price.

I've been wanting one of these choppers for a while. It did an excellent job of cutting apples and potatoes into small cubes. But, it was unable to cut celery at all and had hard a hard time with an onion too.I make a stuffing that has small cubes of potatoes and apples in it. It's time consuming to cube everything, and I never end up with all the produce the same size. So, for me, this set is worth keeping just for that ability. Those small cubes of potatoes would be great for making hash browns too.For onions, I'll continue to use Kuhn Rikon Swiss Pull Chop it does a great job.

Will not cut cheese it makes the motor skip the cogs. Sounds like it is breaking. Cutting meat is really a messy job.

this doesn't cut evenly. and the guide fence moves too much so it produces uneven cuts. this was my first one though. i'll upgrade in the future.

I bought this to slice home cured bacon and to make jerky. Not a good product for that. Maybe good for veggies? The motor is loud and the blade doesn't cut meat very well. I sliced around 50lbs of meat over three different uses before the motor burnt up.

If you're slicing old bread maybe this would work. If you're slicing 3/4" ham slices, very very very slowly, this may work. If you're trying to use this to do any butchering (slicing home smoked meats for freezing, slicing pieces of loins for steaks). The blade moces/flexes. The backplate flexes, the holder lets everything slip. Pretty poor set up, but you really do get what you pay for.

the blade is not sharp, no guard over the slicer blade, never again, dangerous!

Took it out of the box ... put it immediately back in the box and returned it.I was optimistic about this product because of the (mostly) good reviews. From a design perspective, the feed tray will not accept a piece of meat over 4 inches ... maybe closer to 3 inches ... that can be overcome by using a knife to make shorter pieces ... I don't like that. This is due to its insufficient depth. In addition, the pusher does not secure to the machine and adds to the limitation on meat length (another reviewer faulted this and I should have listened). IMO, this renders the machine unusable and unsafe.Lastly, the blade was dull. This could have been a manufacturing QA oversight, but in my opinion, the Chinese do not know how to put a good cutting edge on any kitchen utensil. The cheap Rival folding slicer (purchased 15 years ago at a discount store) that this Weston was replacing had an excellent (RE. very sharp) Solingen blade ... excellent blade on a junk slicer! How times have changed.I should have known better than to expect something useable for $95 and will save my pennies for a German-made Chef's Choice ... no doubt with a (sharp) Solingen blade.

Worked good the first time I used it. Unfortunately the second time around while dicing pickles one of the blades must have stretched out and derailed from the rest, so I could not continue until with a little effort reset the blade back into place with the other blades. Looks like it should still work(though you can see that the blades are stretching out), but I suspect it will happen again next time it gets moderate use.

I was very happy with this at first. I was really sharp. Now, it is so dull and the blades bend and get ruined. It would not even cut up a tomato. I would love to return it but it has been too long. Buy the vad onion chopper. So much better. This is what I get for trying to save 5 bucks.

Purchased this 7 months ago, and use it fairly regularly and with good aftercare - immediate wash and dry before storing. Liked the ease of use and quality of cut.Was going strong until recently, when the blades bent and one of them cracked when chopping carrots - we slice them with a knife to not more than 1/4" thickness before putting on the chopper. Should have worked longer than this.

The plastic that pushes the food into the blades is to soft. If it's not lined up perfectly, the blades will cut the plastic. I often waste time picking bits of plastic from my food. I had purchased another product similar to this years ago, and it worked perfectly until one of my children accidently dropped it and broke the clear plastic bottom. I ordered this as a replacement, and I will be sure to never order this brand again

So far, I'm not impressed. The way the grates are designed on the regular sized insert, they bend and Come out of place. I ordered this two weeks ago and this happened within a week. I had only used it for soft things. I returned it and was going to just get my money back but the company offered to ship me a replacement. I decided to give it a try and the replacement arrived yesterday. We'll see how it goes. The hinge is much better quality than with the Progressive Vidalia Onion Chopper. But this grate problem issue is the worst part of the design. I've owned the Vidalia onion chopper and its grates never did this. They are designed better (but the hinge is super cheap and breaks if you even do one carrot or something harder!).

Both me and my husband got our fingers cut on the first use, so be careful with it. I was able to slice tomatoes, cucumbers, pepper with mandolin. But chopping onion was not so easy (I had to use knife to cut onion in thinner pieces). Using this thing to get cubes was almost impossible - any veggie with skin would not cut. I needed to cut tomatoes, eggplant and squash into cubes - tomato just got smashed, other veggies had to pre-sliced with knife. I think I almost broke the lid trying to chop them. So not of the features worked for me.

Do not like this slicer. The meat tray does not come off for cleaning. The meat keeps getting hung up on bottom corner of blade/body of slicer due to poor design. This causes meat to slip amd cut uneven. The plastic meat holder/safety guard is to short. Anything 'll her than guard has no pressure and blade pushes it upward.Bacon was first thing I cut and it would shoot the bacon out the car side. So I had to cut bacon down to 4 inch length to cut. Then had roast and same problem happened. So to cut reasonable slices it cannot be thin and much wider than about 4 inches.Easy to clean, belt driven but does not cut how I need it.

Received item was factory flaw motor drive gear is stripped and out of alignment with the belt and slave pulley belt broken before rotated it with motor.

This is not a meat cutter/slicer, since it has never successfully been able to cut meat. It failed mildly the first time I used it, and by the third attempt, it can't even spin the blade. I have cleaned it and lubricated it based on best practices. I will never buy another Weston product, and would suggest you avoid them too!

Slicer did not perform well at all. Blade did not spin fast enough to cut simple american cheese. the cut was rough and the blade would skip towards the end of the slice. Great price but not a great machine. I sent it back for a better more powerful one.

I used it just 3 times. And it's motor was gone.It isn't useful molten meet, ham, some kind of cheese.. etc. It can cut just soft things (For example, vegetable or meet)If you want to use this one, please buy good slicer. That's better.

Blade grabs whatever you slice! On this unit the grinding of the blade is so rough it grabs and flings what you slice to the end of the slicer very dangerous

I thought I would save time in prep by using this cutter.But found it's not convient to useHand slicing has to be done to even use it.And doesn't do a good job.I wanted to dice tomatoes but the only cutter that works is makes only large pieces and then you have to hand cut them in smaller pieces.It's like, why am I even using this thing? If use the smaller size cutters and there are 3 of them veggies get smashed up.They give you this really small comb to clean the top grid and blades which are very sharp tht's time consuming.It is easier to just do the good old fashion knife and cutting board methiod.I would definitely not recommend this product waste of time, I have only used it few times because it not worth using.Unfortunately I did not return it in the 30 day period so I'm stuck with it

I HATE this product !!! I wish i could give it a minus stars review, this thing don't work at all it won't even chop a small onion that i cut it into quarters without pretty much having to use a hammer to make it work , and than on top of that my teenage son tried to help me and the thing cut the crap out of his finger , I'm sending this death trap back asap !! Cool concept but super bad design.

honestly I cut vegetables on a daily basis and i figured why not make it easier on myself to buy this. After about a week of using it for things like onions,green peppers, and apples i noticed i have green pieces of plastic in my lunch from the top of the container see when the top pushed on the blades it pushed the plastic top grid and chips off in your food. really disappointed in this product i would but this again i would rather chop my own stuff then accidentally eat plastic

I was looking for a replacement for my current onion chopper, because it was getting worn. After reading the reviews I ordered this one. I must have gotten the defective one because the one I got had trouble chopping an onion....it does more of a mashing than chopping. I even tried thin slices of onion...and even that just mashes. On top of that after you try each slice you then have to peel off the the cutting grate and attemp to put it back together. This is not a well engineered kitchen gadget. I will be going to Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase a replacement for my original Vadalia Onion Chopper & this one is getting tossed.

I just recently purchased this to replace another one that had for another which I had for years (another brand). I decided to purchase this one as a replacement but as soon as I washed it in the dishwasher on the top shelf the main the base unit warped, so now I can't place the top chopper piece on top of it without a struggle. So I am off to buy another brand.

It broke its very first use, chopping veggies. I'm a chopper queen and this isn't my first go around. This is however the first time I've had one of these crack and fall to pieces so easily, a large plastic chunk chipped off the side of the container / holder base. It was making a crunch sound and I looked down and it was broken. Not sure if it came chipped and I didn't notice or if it was just the cheapest thinnest plastic on any chopper I have tried to date.