Sales Rank: 505


Features:

Uses 310 watts of power

Programmable with clock and timer to cook rice, keep it warm, and reheat it

Offers different settings for white/brown, mixed, sweet, and porridge

Quick-cooking feature cuts time by 10 minutes

Measuring cup, serving spatula, and 12 recipes included

Average Rating:
Rating: - the best rice I've ever eaten
I have used a regular rice cooker for thirty years and was perfectly happy with it until I moved up to this fuzzy logic machine. It makes 3.5 cups cooked sticky rice or 4.5 cups regular rice or other grain. Instead of several times a week, I find myself using this several times a day. In ten days I have made oatmeal, grits, bulgur, couscous, rice porridge (which I had never eaten before), pilaf, risotto, real tapioca pudding, and of course a number of types of rice (brown, white, short and long grain, basmati, texmati, Carolina, wild rice, etc.). Everything is superb. The porridge cycle does puddings and custards as well as cereals. The timer allows you to prepare breakfast before you go to bed or dinner before you leave for work, and it will be ready at the hour you set. It keeps whatever it cooks warm and appetizing for hours (longer than it says). Rice generally takes around 50 minutes and things on the porridge cycle take around 70. If you need a larger amount of rice, then I'd recommend a bigger fuzzy logic cooker over the regular style machines. This is truly superb.

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Rating: - Awesome little rice cooker!
This is a really great little rice cooker. It [costs a little more]... but it is worth the money.
I bought it several months ago, and it proved its worth within a week. It cooks rice really well. I love making hot cereal in it because I can set the timer so that the cereal will be done (and very fluffy) when I wake up in the morning.
Of course, the rice can't compare to Indian/Asian restaurant rice, but it tastes really good to me. I often eat it with nothing else.
The countdown function (10 minutes til done and so forth) and the alert are also very convenient features.
The reviewer who mentioned that it is a little hard to clean because rice gets gunked up in the back of the lid and in the drain is right, but it is not impossible to clean it all up. Just don't put milk in the cooker. That's bad news.
It's true that the English translation in the manual is sometimes off, but I think if you didn't read the manual, it is pretty self explanatory and easy to use.
This definitely would be too small for a family, but as I live by myself, it makes just the right amount of rice/cereal.
One other thing: the retractable cord stopped retracting within a month, but I don't find that too big a deal, just a little disappointing. As long as it keeps cooking.
All in all, I am happy with this purchase and would recommend it. I use very nearly every day.

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Rating: - A Response to Some Other Reviews
This is NOT intended as a full review of this machine; I have only owned it for one day and obviously cannot comment on reliability and many other important issues.

The only reason I decided to post this is that I almost did not buy this rice cooker because of some comments that are present repeatedly in earlier reviews, which are perhaps either overstated or not applicable to many potential buyers.

One common complaint is that the rice maker won't make enough rice and you need a larger one. This depends entirely on your circumstances. I am an athletic 50 year old male and eat a huge amount of food for dinner each evening. The most dried rice product (e.g. when cooked) I could conceivably ever eat is 1.25 to 1.5 cups, the cooked result of which is obviously much larger. Two very hungry adults would have trouble consuming all the rice this thing can make in one sitting. And why would you use the rice for leftovers if making rice in a rice cooker is so easy and the rice itself is dirt cheap? I used a similarly sized (but very basic) 3-cup National (Panasonic) rice cooker for about 10 years and never used close to the capacity of that cooker. So, for 1 or 2 people this thing makes a fully sufficient quantity, however for a family you would probably want a larger model.

As to quality of the rice produced, there is no comparison between what this Zojirushi makes and what I get out of the Panasonic. The Panasonic produces dry rice that is burned at the bottom. This cooker, the Zojirushi, produces moist rice in easily separated grains that are not burned at all, anywhere. I found the timing function to be convenient.

Other reviewers have stated that this model has fuzzy logic; I don't think that is correct. You have to buy a more expensive rice cooker from Zojirushi to get that feature. Personally, I'm only concerned about the results, not how they were made, so I'm happy with this and don't miss fuzzy logic.

Using white rice, clean up took about 1 minute or less.

You will need to read other reviews for the kinds of insights you can get only from longer term ownership.