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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Kim Kleman
Aired July 28, 2002 - 09:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: In our consumer segment today, from stoves to refrigerators, people want the most for their money, of course. Consumer Reports has dived into the world of appliances and fishes out some real treasures for us. And from New York, the managing editor for "Consumer Reports" magazine, Kim Kleman.
Kim, it's honor to have you here this morning. I was so hoping we were going to have time for this segment, because we have had so much going on in the news today.
You know, you're going to tell us how you can get the look of a professional kitchen for a lot less money -- so pro.
KIM KLEMAN, CONSUMER REPORTS MAGAZINE: That's right. That was one of our biggest findings in the hundreds and hundreds of appliances that we tested for our August issue, was that you can get top performance, and pro style features, but not have to pay pro style prices. We found a real sweet spot in the market.
CALLAWAY: All right, let's take a look at some of the things that you found. Going to start with the refrigerator, because that's my favorite. Everybody always wants a sub zero, the big professional refrigerator -- you can get that look, though, and the same kind of service with one a lot less expensive?
KLEMAN: Absolutely. These are two GE refrigerators. You'll notice that one of them is a cabinet dip (ph), which means that it's not as, you know, it's not as big, it doesn't have quite as much room as a regular refrigerator, but you get that pro style look, it's about $2,300 as opposed to more than $4,000 for the built-in refrigerator.
So, you can see you're saving money; you have the same kind of look.
CALLAWAY: All right, now let's move on to ovens -- range ovens, I understand that there's some kind of test that you perform, involving cookies.
I really would like to have taken part in this test, because it does look like the perfect cookies.
KLEMAN: Everybody loves this test, because we get to eat the results. This is a Kenmore Elite gas range, it's about $1,600, cleans very easily, you mentioned our bake test, it baked cookies very easily, we compare that to this $3,900 Viking range a pro style range, which didn't do as well in our baked test.
You'll be able to see those cookies very soon -- this is definitely pro style, stainless steel, it didn't clean particularly well, and you can see the cookies here, how they're very uneven. Some of them are burnt on the bottom; some of them are much darker than others.
CALLAWAY: That's Catherine Callaway cookies -- all my turn out that way -- $1,600, I mean, you say that's a good buy, but still seems rather expensive to me; you think its worth it?
KLEMAN: Well, it really depends on what your values are. If you are a cook, if you don't want to spend $4,000, $1,600 is a good buy.
CALLAWAY: Yes.
KLEMAN: We also found ranges that were, that were hundreds of dollars, you know, four, five, six hundred. So, it just depends on what you like, what you want.
CALLAWAY: All right, now here's where I cook, in the microwave. What did you find out about microwaves?
KLEMAN: We found some very interesting features in microwaves. We do a popcorn test. The same bag of popcorn -- how does one microwave pop it, versus another?
The Kenmore Elite under the range microwave did very well with popcorn. The difference here was that it has a sensor to sense how much popcorn is left in the bag, and that did much better than microwaves that had timers as their popcorn feature. Look at the difference here.
CALLAWAY: Oh, my goodness. Did you say how much this went for?
KLEMAN: This one was about $460.
CALLAWAY: Oh my God.
KLEMAN: That one under the range one, though. Most are counter tops.
CALLAWAY: And you can put a lot of money in your kitchen if you want to.
KLEMAN: Absolutely.
CALLAWAY: What about a dishwasher? I love a dishwasher, a good dishwasher. And I know one of the things you're concerned about is how loud they are. Now, that looks like a professional dishwasher right there.
KLEMAN: Right. This is a Bosh (ph) dishwasher. It goes for about $1,200 to $1,400. We can compare the noise level with a regular, cheap dishwasher. That's what we see with this white one. The Bosh (ph) is interesting because it has its controls on the lift on the panel; you don't even see the controls. It's stainless steel. It's one unit. It's a very interesting feature.
CALLAWAY: Yeah, I was going to say, I like the way that you can get that stainless steel look now in all the appliances, and you can walk in the kitchen, and at least on the surface, it looks like a kitchen that cost twice as much.
KLEMAN: Right.
CALLAWAY: Kim Kleman, thank you very much for getting out with us early on this Sunday morning, nice to have you and thank you for all the information out there for those shopping for a new kitchen.
KLEMAN: Thanks for having me.
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