BEAUTURAL Mini Travel Steam Iron: Useful Upgrade With Quirks

I bought this to replace a similar iron made by Dritz. The Dritz iron wasn't perfect either but it did last for about 7 years of constant use. Many of the Dritz models had a manufacturing flaw triggering a rather massive recall, mine was not included in the recall and worked well until the day it quit working. I searched with care for a replacement, buying a small iron made by Cricut that I like quite a bit, but it has a very small soleplate. I needed something just a little bigger, and kept searching for a better option. Some of the features that drew me to this Beautural model turned out not to such great features in practice. The soleplate on the Beautural is pointed on both ends, which sounded like a good idea, but it means that you cannot prop the iron upright on its end between use. To that end, it comes with a contoured silicone rest mat that fits the plate rather snugly, but that rest is less than ideal. First - it gets very hot, much hotter than a similar silicone mat I have for my full-sized iron. Strike two, is that the rest fits a little too snugly. When I pick up the iron to use it, half the time the rest stays stuck on the plate, requiring me to pull it off with my fingers. This is awkward for as I mentioned before, that silicone mat gets very hot. I found a good solution to that problem by resting the iron, between use, at a 90 degree angle to the contours of the mat (see accompanying photo). This elevates the iron above the surface of the mat just a little, but enough to keep the mat from getting too hot. It also prevents the iron from settling into the contoured mat and alleviates the problem of having to pry it off the plate. The positive features include an adjustable temperature wheel (my Dritz had only one heat setting), and a nice long cord that does not kink. My Dritz had a tightly curled 'pigtail' cord that I was never certain was supposed to be that way. The cord would kink and curl and was difficult to straighten. Sometimes the kinks were tight enough to upset the iron, knocking it over (I melted my rug one time when it fell off my work table and landed soleplate down on the rug). The Beautural also has a steam feature that I haven't tried yet. The Dritz had a steam function but the water would leak from the reservoir, making steam a moot point. In all, I am happy with this replacement for my Dritz, but it's far from perfect.