Tobi Steamer
by Chris H.
(Westfield, NJ, USA)
A few months ago, I purchased a Tobi Steamer from a wholesale retailer, believing that it would be easy to use, and in the words of the website, "even fun!" It wasn't. I got the device home and spent the next four hours trying to figure out how to remove the darned thing from its box and assemble it. The directions were unclear and in some cases even wrong. The bar to hold the clothes wasn't sturdy and took me nearly an hour to set up.
Once I had finally figured out how it was put together, I was left with a large pile of trash packaging, including plastic bags and twist ties of all shapes and sizes. There was so much trash packaging that I felt bad for the environment just looking at it all.
I took the water container and filled it, figuring I would test out the steamer with a wrinkled shirt of mine. Of course, the directions didn't help out and so I ended up spilling some water on my carpet when I tried to connect it all together. Once I had finished connecting it to the unit, I powered it up and waited for it to preheat. It took about ten minutes until steam started coming out of the unit, and even then, it wasn't very powerful. I was disappointed, but tried it on a shirt.
The steam didn't seem to have much of an effect (aside from burning me whenever I got too close). I spent about 20 minutes trying to properly steam the shirt, but to no avail. After burning myself particularly badly, I gave up and got out my old iron.
In short, the device is flimsy and doesn't even function well. I spent too long setting the darn thing up to have it fail so badly, and it was taken back to the store the next day. I didn't even repackage it - the manager at the store understood when I showed him my burned hands and just took it back, no questions asked.