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Comment by starkparker | Hacker News Reader

You can get a 1700W Kenwood Titanium Chef XL in the US. The KitchenAid does not share a target market with it.

They're essentially the respective kitchen power tool brand equivalents of Ryobi and Festool. The KitchenAid looks better, is designed for simplicity and approachability, covers the typical uses of a home kitchen, and sacrifices high-end power for flexibility as a multi-tool.

The Kenwood is larger, heavier, and more difficult to clean and maintain. Its size gives it a larger capacity that most households won't use. It costs 2-4x more than the KitchenAid and AFAICT comes in only the stainless steel finish. Most of the power available to the Kenwood is useless to home cooking and baking.

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The Kenwood machines are not more difficult to use. It literally has one knob and a pulsing setting. You flip the machine back to remove the bowl. Easy to clean. It is exactly the same handling. The Kenwood is build very sturdyly, build like a tank and gives has the additional power. It looks more ugly but is the better product. It is just that brand awareness of the KitchenAid trumps all.

Also the machine you mentioned is not sold in the US anymore. Afaik the only machine is the 800W Chef Titanium (which is what I have).

> the machine you mentioned is not sold in the US anymore

That's bizarre, because it was on sale in the US last year when I was picking between it, a KitchenAid, and a Breville.

Owning neither of these I don't see why the KitchenAid would be better as a multi-tool. Based on photos it looks like the Kenwood has the exact same shaft hookup for a meat grinder or pasta maker.

Coming only stainless being a drawback and the KitchenAid looking better are completely subjective.

I can totally buy it being heavier, but why would it be less approachable? It's a wheel versus a selector knob.

I wonder how the 1.7kW would handle mixing pasta dough.

The multi-tool is a focus of the KitchenAid but just a feature on the Kenwood. If you have the money and space for a Kenwood Titanium, you probably have better tools for the more specialized jobs that the attachment ports on it offer.

Being heavier and taking up more counter space _is_ what makes it harder to use, less affordable, and less approachable. The Kenwood would not fit on the counter where I keep my KitchenAid without removing utensils I use while cooking or sacrificing what little prep space I have. If I wanted to store it in the cabinet under the counter when not in use, the extra 4-5 pounds vs. my KitchenAid would make it literally, physically harder to use.

And yes, the appearance is subjective. KitchenAid trades on that; they have more colors and finishes than features. That's important to people who don't care if the mixer can't knead a dense dough or mix a triple-batch of a recipe in one go.

I get you, thanks.

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