A fan of the cheapest available rice cookers and well able to cook good rice (of several sorts and varieties) in everyday pots and pans, I have to marvel at the sort of perspective which would cause one to spend more on a rice cooker than many regular rice eaters spend for a year's supply of rice.

Closing my eyes, I clearly recall (from long ago and far away) a small and elderly Vietnamese woman squatting in the bilges of a narrow sampan, fanning life and heat from a tiny charcoal fire, as she cooked rice in an old coffee can. I sure liked her rice, but it took a day or two to get used to the Nuoc Mam inevitably served with or added to the bits of meat and fresh vegetables served accompanying it.