It’s easy to use, and easy to clean. I am sodium intolerant so cold cuts are a big no no for me. I cooked a roast beef, chicken, and turkey breast and made my own cold cuts. What a savings and so much food. Shared with my daughterI bought this for my GF who loves to cook and comes up with some of the best smoked meats with the intent to slice up the left overs for sandwiches. Also we buy blocks of cheese at Costco and wanted to give slicing that up a try.I looked at most of the food slicers on Amazon and other sites. Since the idea was to slice smoked meats I wanted a larger blade. The Chefs Choice had the best review but they had smaller 7" blades or the larger ones were expensive. Also if you read the Chefs Choice reviews I got curious why they had such a high rating since everyone states in their reviews they don't have much power and are limited on what you can cut with them. I decided to try this one and so for its been a winner.Before I got started I decided to do a couple things. I read all the reviews and decided to follow one of the recommendations and make sure the gears were greased. So when it arrived i I pulled it apart and re-greased the gears at the motor and also where the blade rotates on the aluminum spindle. I understand everyone wont do this on a brand new appliance but it was a gift and I wanted to make certain it worked well for her.I also took a coupe minutes with a Smith's 50002 9-Inch Oval Ceramic Sharpening Rod and ran it down the blade while it was spinning. This made a night and day difference in the sharpness of the slicer blade.We used it to slice some smoked Prime Rib and it worked like a charm. Cut very thin slices nice and even. I was impressed with how easy it cut and it was even fast. Not like the ones they use at the delli, but fast enough to make quick work of the meat we were slicing.I can understand peoples point about the fence flexing and giving uneven thickness in the cuts but we did not have that problem. It cut very fast and did not load down the motor at all.Reviews are correct that cleanup could be easier given limited diss-assembly. However the tray slides far enough forward and back I was able to access the parts that needed cleaning easy enough with a cloth. The blade only takes a second to remove and cleans up quickly in dish soap. its much easier to clean than our Breville Juicer so I would say its not bad at all.So far I give this 5+ Stars. For the money it does everything we expect of it with flying colors.it's just ok, we've used ours about once a week; and by the 3rd use we had outgrown it. We'll keep it to slice up smaller stuff, but after 2 months of owning ours, we need to upgrade.Love the thin slices of deli meat and roasts. A little bit of a pain to clean but not terrible.Works well but kind of a pain to clean. Doesn't disassemble far enough for cleaning. Frond sliding tray doesn't come off for cleaning. Needs to drop the cut food behind the machine not on the back of it..Bought this ad a birthday present for my husband. He's been wanting one as he loves working with food and is pretty amazing at what he does. I knew this would never be something he bought for himself and I was so sketchy buying him one as he's worked with amazing commercial ones. So I watched reviews, did my homework, hesitated over and over again hoping I was not going to totally disappoint him. I finally decided on this one. Today he opened it and was immediately surprised on how sturdy it felt right out of the box. He gave it a one over. He was pretty impressed for just a home noncommercial slicer. Then he plugged it in. I was so nervous it wouldn't be good enough. He began slicing ham, they come out in good even slices, he moved onto cheese and those came out beautifully, even the brittle Amish swiss cheese. After that he began cutting tomatoes. They sliced perfectly as well. He was really impressed with the whole setup. It had good power, nice even slices. He did read in the booklet to not run for more than 15 consecutive minutes or else you could cause damage. That is A OK. He just wanted it to slice stuff for a family of 4.The only negative thing he had say about the whole slicer- the plastic hand guard that also holds the food to the slicer, when you're trying to switch out meats or cheese etc it slides off way to easy. Not a big deal really, it's functionality is still great, just could have been designed better.For now after one use that is all we have to say. After more uses we will update more!As of now we are super happy with the purchase.Update: it's been a few years and it's still going strongWhen I first started using this slicer, I was very skeptical. This is the first meat slicer I have ever used. I had to experiment with it and I have done so for the last two weeks and here are my NEGATIVE observations:1. The motor is loud.2. The blade doesn't rotate as fast as I thought it would.3. The hand guard is rather small for the blade at only about 4.5 inches wide and about 3 inches tall.4. There is nothing to catch the meat slices as they fall off the blade. They just fall onto the table or whatever surface you are using.Here are my POSITIVE observations:1. It does the job for a home kitchen unit.2. Even though the blade doesn't spin as fast as I was expecting, it will still do the job.3. The hand guard is too small, so I recommend using a kevlar glove on the feeding hand in order to prevent exposure to the blade. It would be pretty easy to forget yourself and expose your hand to the blade.4. Even though the unit does not have something to catch the slices as they fall off, I found a narrow and small plastic cutting board that will catch them.5. Cut things cold or at least at room temperature.6. I find that by using a cooking spray, it makes it a lot easier to slice the food through the processor.Conclusion:This unit gets the job done for a kitchen meat slicer. For the price, I don't think you could find a better deal. So, I recommend this slicer highly for home use.Sincerely,Ross, in Cheyenne, WYEasy to useWhile it does make a great cut the thickness of cut opens a gap between backstop and sled allowing the meat or product to fall and snarl between the outset guide and sled. also if the product is tacky of any sort it catches up on upswing of blade taking right out of gripper guide on the sled. But it does work on certain meats like cooked ham and roast beef I have not been in a position yet of using it on raw meats or on vegetables. But I do believe it would be fairly adequate at these items. I won't know until I try them.This product is not very good because;1) it doesn’t cut consistently-the thickness gauge is poorly constructed2) sounds like it’s going to die (weird noise)3) way to much plastic just flimsyEasy to remove the blade but the rest of the machine is a pain to clean. Meat gets stuck behind the blade and there are little crevasse that are hard to clean. The movable tray doesn't move smoothly and is hard to clean properly aswell. Very disappointing. Would not recommend it to anyone and of course I can't return it.I bought this as a gift for my husband and I should have known by the price that the machine is not "heavy duty" by our standards, which is commercial grade.The slicer is okay for slicing a chunk of ham and left over roasts from Sunday night's dinner but you can't go too fast or the meat slips out of the holder and the hand guard is thinner plastic. The machine is okay for light home kitchen use but if you need it for anything more then spend the extra bucks and buy the bigger machine at Costco. I love the smaller size of this machine for my kitchen.It made a absolute mess, I had more success cutting my meat with a spoon than with this, Blade was dull, meat was slipping around and getting sheared/smooshed/grinded rather than sliced