I loved this popcorn maker. I thought it was beautiful, and bought it although for years I thought it was silly to buy something just to pop corn and take up counter space. Well, I moved my toaster oven to the garage just to make space for it.After about 6 months, yesterday one of the little handles you need to press to release the heating plate broke. The popper still worked, but it's ridiculous...the thing just broke off in my hand as I was pressing it. Then I burned myself on the heating plate. I've never done so before, but I wasn't looking carefully and got a bad burn. The problems is you have to pick up the heating plate with the bowl and flip it over. The heating plate has cool handles, but if you get distracted and you are a bit off you can get a pretty bad burn. NOT a good design.