for the price, its pretty good. Its rather traditional in its design (tried and true i guess), my friend had the Fagor DUO 8 Quart which i tried for awhile and in truth I liked that better BUT when I went to amazon it was like $40 more expensive than what she bought it for so I opted for this. I might have been able to find that fagor for cheaper or floor model or something... later perhaps but for now this works well enough.