Blade is dull; hence unit is prone to crushing pills. Also design is unusable for oversized pills.
Bit more experience, so I have to tweak my review.<br /><br />Still not convinced the blade is any good, but it's become clear that the problem is with the specific pills we're trying to cut; they're just too big. Meaning that in our case, it's the plastic shell that holds the blade in place that is crushing the pill before the blade even has a chance of applying any significant force. Otherwise, my original opinion, below, is unchanged. I still think the blade is too dull for the job, but I cannot rigorously attest to that as we've had no cause to split the size pills it's clearly designed to handle.<br /><br />Two different units are both doing the same thing, and due to careless advertising (can't be sure if this is the seller's or Amazon's fault) I have two more that I can test with. But I'm fully expecting the same results.<br /><br />Bought this to handle 1,500mg "horse" pill, which just barely fit; however, the description clearly states (I am paraphrasing) "Works with all pills; small, large, and will not crush".<br /><br />Well, between myself and my wife, we've now used this on about a dozen pills, and the result has been the same every time. Crushed pills; frequently into powder. Yet we can split these same pills, without issue, with a simple pair of decent quality scissors.<br /><br />"Didn't follow the instructions"; um, what instructions? Not to mention the function is so bloody obvious that no instructions are needed. However, I tried both gentle, firm pressure, and just straight-up hard pressure--gentle and firm did nothing but test my patience; it certainly did not work. Hard pressure worked but ... powder, or at best large chunks.<br /><br />"Clearly the blade is dull" I thought, and some quick testing confirmed that. Indeed, these blades can't even cut paper, so how can they be expected to handle pills that are much denser?<br /><br />Good idea; OK design, but the piss-poor blade ruins the whole thing.<br /><br />And sorry, the "Must protect the children; that's why the blades aren't as sharp as they could be" excuse doesn't fly with me. No aware parent would allow a young child anywhere near this thing, dull blade or not.
Rating: 2 stars