What features are important in a hand mixer?

What I look for in a good mixer are:

• A comfortable grip (I'm sure we've all have painful wrists after whisking up eggs whites or similar)

• Well made, sturdy parts. (some whisks are strong others are just thin wire.)

• Variable speed control

• The Watt rating.

To answer your No.2 question, watts are important. They measure how much power the machine uses. Higher watts will mean the machine does more of the work and your wrist does less of the work. The cheapest machines on the market are only good for whipping light foods like cream and mayonnaise. If you plan on mixing up heavy fruit cakes or bread doughs, you should choose a higher wattage machine.

Paying for a good quality machine, if you can afford it, will save you money in the end. My mother has had the same hand mixer for over 35 years. She paid for a good one and it lasted. I however, like you, opted for a low price machine because I was on a budget, I am now on my third and this time I bought a sturdier model and I am much more satisfied with it. If I'd bought the better machine at first, I'd have saved myself £50 or so over the time.

The problem we have incurred with hand mixers is premature failure (they last about 2-1/2 years) due to the dusty air above the beaters being drawn into the mixer and wearing out the gears and motor brushes. A good design would draw in air from the back handle as far away from the beaters as possible to prevent this or use a totally enclosed design so dust intake is not a problem.

In addition to the points of the previous answer I would like to add:

• Volume of the bowl
• Durability of the clutch

The clutches in many of the ones I have seen are made of plastic and can very easily wear out fast if they slip or aren't engaged properly before power is applied.

I can hear my 575W (output power!) Kitchenaid stand mixer fighting dough at times: it takes a lot of power to knead dough (especially low-hydration dough). I'm having a hard time believing that a hand mixer could do so at all, and if it were powerful enough, holding it would be extremely tiring. Cook's Illustrated says that “even the best hand mixers fail miserably at kneading bread dough….” Keep in mind a stand mixer is easily 20 lbs (9kg), much of that the motor. A 3 lb hand mixer would be heavy.

I'm also not sure how you'd expect a hand mixer to do the kinds of things a food processor does.

Ultimately, they're useful for light jobs and small jobs; the better ones can do heavier things too (mashed potatoes).

Unfortunately the best way to chose one is based on its kitchen performance, which is going to mean either testing a bunch or looking at reviews (possibly professional ones). Possibly you can find those review magazines at your local library?

Maybe it's silly, but when purchasing a mixer, I pay attention to the amount of speed and power :-) I like powerful devices on my kitchen, that's why I bought Cuisinart HM-70 (7 speed, 220 watt!)
Here good review fo it.

The one problem I keep having when I buy hand mixers is that, while it has a variable speed control, the lowest setting is far too fast to avoid messes in many applications. You want the speed control to go from rather slowly to rather quickly; mine goes from rather quickly to OMGSOFAST. That's why I'd go with a pricier model (mine was ~5-10USD, my old one broke and it was an emergency replacement).