I be wary about buy a older product -lrb- judge by the age of some review -rrb- , but it turn out I have nothing to worry about . Rice be very easy to cook on paper , but a real pain to get right for the desire time . with this device I have yet to get it wrong . I be not sure why there be issue with the instruction , you do not need any if you be do simple rice . you basically have a small plastic beaker with number up the side , and a bigger pot that sit in the machine to do the cooking which have number on the inside . it seem pretty obvious there be related , so no need for a manual . my routine with regular jasmine and Basmati rice be to simply measure the amount of rice desire into the beaker , say up to the # 2 line , dump that into the pot . Wash it a few time , drain . fill this pot with water up to the same number I have on the beaker , and put that into the machine . Select white rice on the menu and press the big `` cooking '' button . when it beep it be tune , the rice be do . it do not matter whether it be ready well before everything else , the machine keep it warm without dry it out . the rice be the same standard as you 'll get in a Thai , indian or chinese take-away . I also use the fast cook option and the result be fine too . bloody marvelous ! the machine do a whole load of other grainy type thing too , but we 'll probably never use they . the cooking pot clean up very easily , unlike stainless steel pan on a stove : d I should add we cook with filtered water , fl water be ghastly , so all we drink and cook with it through a reverse osmosis filter under the kitchen sink . UPDATE : 20 month later , this be still work as expect . the internal pot do not show any sign of peel or deterioration . if only bread-maker work this well !