I've got one that looks exactly like that but it was a Open Country brand from either BPS or Cabela's- can't remember which. I paid about $65 for it. Here it is now that I looked for it- it's listed for more than the one you linked to (link I got was at the bottom of the link you sent and is where 22% of other people bought or something like that) but the description is identical. Same machine, different names it looks like.
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/st...SSSELL_PRODUCT
Bottom line is that it's not top of the line, but it's not all that horrible either. Over the last year I've used it to slice/shave literally hundreds of pounds of pastrami, turkey breast, brisket, boneless turkey in 10 lb "blobs", and some sausages like pepperoni and such. It's still going strong although it's picked up a squeak a couple of batches ago. The inside of the blade that runs where the gears are has a little bit of a wear-ring showing up but has no impact on anything.
I have NOT used it to cut cheese after I tried it on my first batch of smoked cheese. It's just not strong enough to do that regularly and tends to bog down.
The only thing to break, and it was my fault and was the very first time I used it, was the plastic meat pusher thing. After I finished cutting a piece, I forgot that I had it laying on there still and went and lifted the meat support just to see what it looked like under there and well, it just slid off and hit the floor and broke the main handle off. The next day I called them and they said they were out of them but would send me one when they came in. A couple of months later it came in. But...by that time I was used to the "half handle" and actually liked using it better that way. Go figure!
Blade- it's the scalloped kind so is supposed to be sharp all the time. Mostly it is and works well as long as you let the blade do the work- don't force the meat. Over time you'll get a bit of the tips sort of 'curling' though, but I just took a sharpening steel made for knives and turned it on and gently let the blade slide over that on both sides. Safe I don't know but I was careful and had one of those anti-cut gloves on. That got it looking like new again.
The suction cups. Work good sometimes and not others and can't figure out why not. I've had them stick to a wood storage shelf so hard I wasn't sure I was going to get the thing out or not. Then on a laminate counter I've had it move around so much I wedged it against 2 sides to keep it from slipping.
Evenness of slices is up to how you use it to a point. If you push to hard you will make things move (the back for instance) and that will make your slices get thicker or thiner than you want. The good thing is though that if you let the blade do the work and don't push or shove on it more than it takes to just keep the meat going back and forth, you can get very even slices repeatedly. The half handle break actually helped with that for me since I was closer to the meat then (and also why I wore a kevlar cutting glove).
Anyway....little bit long-winded (again!) but hopefully this will help you out some to decide if you're going to get it or not.
