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The Yellowbird is impressively constructed. It’s solid, a little heavier than normal but not too heavy to hold for long periods of time. Although still the same 1875 watts we had been using, the air flow is more powerful than the lower-end models. The Yellowbird has a high-gauge power cord with a built-in ground fault interrupt plug for safety.

I was looking forward writing a 5-star review on this hair dryer when one of the units, the one we bought at the local supply shop, stop generating heat after about a month. We shipped it back to Conair at our expense and they replaced the unit. Since this was the over-the-counter unit I thought perhaps this one had been damaged in the same way at the store, and didn’t think much of it. Recently, however, the unit purchased from Amazon and in-use for about 60 days, had the same problem. We’ll return this as well.

Shipping costs back to Conair ran about $7.00 each, plus Conair wants a check for their costs to ship a replacement to you. We told them in writing that we would not pay this, and they shipped the replacements anyway. However, you may want to consider buying at a brick & mortar with a liberal carry-in replacement policy, just in case.

I’m keeping my rating middle-of-the-road even with the quality problems on the units themselves. When they work, they’re great, and hopefully what happened to us was an anomaly and not a large-scale quality problem.

Update: About 12 months after replacement, the unit that gets used twice a day is still going strong!

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To me the dryer’s real selling point is its simple and responsive temperature settings. With thin, baby-fine hair, I use warm air to dry and style, followed by cool air to set the style and take the heat off the hair. Unlike other dryers that have a “cool shot” button (which you have to uncomfortably press and hold down for as long as you need cooler air), switching the Yellowbird’s temperature toggle actually gives you a constant flow of honest-to-goodness “cool” — not just “less hot” — air as long as you need it. Flipping the toggle back quickly warms the air flow so you can continue drying and styling the next section. I’m convinced this design has saved me not only from horrible split ends but also from the thumb cramps that those stupid “cool shot” buttons encourage. As such, I say, “Thank you, Yellowbird. You will always have a place near my bathroom mirror.”

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NOTE: For those with wavy hair, it tended to straighten out my curls a bit, but didn’t get rid of frizz so much.