Kitchen · Hamilton Beach · 2015
Hamilton Beach 1.7L Glass Kettle (40880)
The no-frills glass kettle: quick to boil, little to go wrong, and no temperature control at all.
Overall
7.2
out of 10
Axis scores
Kitchen is scored on these 5 axes. The total is their plain average — nothing is weighted.
- Performance — How well it does the core job
- Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
- Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
- Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
- Quietness — Operating noise — a higher score means quieter
Specs
- Body
- Glass with plastic collar
- Control
- On and off
- Capacity
- 1.7 liters
As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.
Is it for you
Buy it if
- A guest room, an office, or a first apartment
- You only ever want boiling water
- Watching the water boil is genuinely part of the appeal
Skip it if
- Daily heavy use — the failure reports cluster fast
- You want temperature control of any kind
In a guest room, a holiday flat, or an office corner, this is entirely appropriate and hard to fault for the outlay. It boils 1.7 liters in the usual time, switches itself off, and has a boil-dry cutout. Nothing else needs describing, which is either the appeal or the objection.
Glass puts the fill level and the limescale both in plain sight, worth more than it sounds in a hard-water area. You descale when you can see that you need to instead of on a schedule you will forget.
This model has no temperature control at all, so green tea and coffee both get boiling water unless you wait and guess. Hamilton Beach does sell a variable-temperature glass kettle; this is not it. Anyone who cares about brewing temperature should stop reading here. Anyone making black tea and instant coffee will never notice.
The plastic collar around the base and the lid mechanism are the parts that fail, and they fail faster here than in any other kettle in this comparison. Repeated descaling discolours the plastic, the lid hinge loosens, and the base contacts are the most exposed of the group. Owner reports cluster around the two-year mark under daily use.
The illuminated base is pleasant and does nothing.
Bought as the kettle a household reaches for six times a day, it becomes a purchase you will make again sooner than you expect.
Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.