Philips Intellicare GC7010 iron review

Ironing is one of those annoying necessities that you have to live with if you are going to cut it in the business world. Presentation is everything and that includes a crease-free shirt.

23 November 2005 0:09 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Ironing is one of those annoying necessities that you have to live with if you are going to cut it in the business world. Presentation is everything and that includes a crease-free shirt.

But the chances are, if you are like me, the iron you’ve got at home is the one that you first got after leaving university - heck why would you want ironed clothes back then? You know it does the job, but it still takes you 20 minutes to successfully iron a shirt.

In steps Philips with its Intellicare 7010 iron with the hope that it can speed up your ironing and make it a chore not to be bothered about.

The ironing system comes in two parts, the iron and a very large steam chamber that sits to one side. The benefit here is that steam can be quickly built up in the steam chamber without the need for an over-large iron and the two are connected by an insulated pipe.

The steam chamber promises a full head of steam in just over a minute from a cold start and in our tests we have to agree that you can get going very quickly once you turn the unit on. Water can be added via the detachable water tank, which can be taken off and refilled from the tap without any loss of steam pressure.

For those in the know, this means a continuous and consistent flow of steam up to 120g/m with 4.2 bars of pressure.

To help matters further the iron comes a big steam button tucked under the handle and twelve different electronic temperature settings, all preset to suit different fabrics; you know from the start that you are playing with a machine worthy of professional ironers.

But what does this all mean? Well to you and me, faster ironing for one thing. The improved steam pressure helps de-crease clothes in seconds rather than minutes and meant in our tests (Mrs Pocket-lint was very happy I was doing the ironing for a change) that a shirt could be ironed in about 2 minutes compared to the 6 minutes it took us with a conventional iron.

So what’s the catch? Well the Intellicare GC7010 is expensive, like £150 expensive, and you’ll have to weigh-up whether or not the gained time and easier ironing is worth the expense. For my household, I think it is, but then the wife and I get through shirts like there is no tomorrow. Before using the GC7010 our ironing pile was the height of a small child, now and this may sound corny, but the pile has considerably diminished because it's much easier to do.

That’s not to say the Intellicare GC7010 makes ironing fun, far from it, but at least it helps get the job at hand done quicker.

Verdict

Overall the GC7010 can be summed as expensive but getting the job done. If you don't have much ironing to do, then this won't be for you, if however you feel like that ironing pile is never ending, this is one way of banishing it for good.

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Review Recap

Made by: Philips
Price as reviewed: £150
Latest price: Compare prices
The good: Quick to heat up from cold, plenty of steam, makes the ironing time go faster
The bad: Very large and bulky base unit, expensive
Quick verdict: Expensive but gets the job done
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