Chef’s Choice Trizor XV Electric Sharpener In-depth Review
Overall Verdict
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV is a highly effective and powerful electric knife sharpener with a safe and simple design. It can produce a sharp, durable edge—one that’s sometimes better than that of a brand-new knife. And to top things off, it works quickly, requires minimal effort, and is simple to use, even for beginners.
The unit does have some limitations. It removes quite a lot of material from the blade and only sharpens to one set edge angle. Its high price tag can also be discouraging to those on a budget, but the device will pay for itself after a while.
Things We Like
- Strong, solid build, great stability
- Excellent sharpness
- Long operation time without overheating
- Sleek design
- Easy setup and cleanup
- Long warranty (3 years)
Things We Don’t Like
- No grind angle options
- Shaves off a lot of knife material
We first bought the Chef’s Choice Trizor XV in October 2021 to test it out, and quickly recognized why it tops so many best-buy boards across the internet. After our first experiments and a year of sparing use, we ran it through another series of tests to see if it still held up.
The machine doesn’t disappoint. It has its quirks, but test results proved, again, that it’s one of the best electric sharpeners to buy if you’re not on a tight budget.
8.0 Performance: Sharpness at a Price
Sharpening at a small grind angle, the Chef’s Choice Trizor XV shaves a considerable amount of steel from the knife. On the other hand, it creates a sharp, strong, and smooth edge.
The sharpener can handle multiple knives in quick succession—a perfect choice for your monthly sharpening binge.
7.0 Speed
It took the Chef’s Choice Trizor XV 32 swipes and almost 6 minutes to bring a sandpaper-blunted knife to the beef tendon cutting level. The cutting felt light and smooth—we didn’t have to apply a lot of pressure to force the knife through. This is about the average of all the machines we’ve tested.
If your chef’s knife is still at a serviceable sharpness level, which is usually the case, the sharpening would take less than half this time (or about 2 - 3 minutes). The manual offers some “strategy” for prepping your knife for different types of food, so you may want to page through it before sharpening.
Note that because the machine sharpens at a smaller angle (15 degrees) than most standard knives (20 - 22 degrees), there’ll likely be some re-edging to do the first time you sharpen with it. Mileage will vary depending on your knife’s material and original edge angle, but for reference, it took us about 5 minutes to re-edge a 20 degree stainless steel knife.
8.7 Edge Quality
The Trizor XV produced a compound bevel knife edge with a bevel height almost double that of most others. Such may give it some advantages when it comes to edge retention. We detected a difference between bevel width from one side of the knife to the other, but it wasn’t significant.
Though each of the bevel facets is formed by a separate sharpening stage with a different coarseness level, the edge as a whole looks even. It doesn’t produce the mirror finish we got from the WorkSharp Ken Onion, but it’s definitely one of the finest by an electric sharpener.
4.5 Material Retention
Given the small edge angle and wide bevels that it creates, it’s not a surprise that the Trizor XV removes more knife material than most others. The consolation is that the edge will stay sharp for long so you won’t have to sharpen your knife very often. But when you do, make sure to not apply too much pressure, or else it’d eat away your blade and round the tip.
We wouldn’t sharpen a blade with a full bolster on this sharpener either, lest it will leave an unsightly recurve near the heel.
10 Continuous Operation Time
The Trizor XV ran smoothly without stopping or pausing through the testing duration of 25 minutes. The machine didn’t even get very hot at the end.
We suspect it could go on for an hour without issues, though we didn’t try that because most people don’t need that much time even if they’re sharpening their whole knife collection.
7.2 Design
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV is large and robust with a practical design. It’s not versatile in terms of grind angle, but it can accept various knife sizes and can even hone serrated knives.
In the Box
- The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV electric knife sharpener
- User’s manual
The Trizor XV comes in a simple cardboard box with a user’s manual, which features English, French, and Spanish. The warranty certificate and user’s registration card is attached in the middle of the manual book.
Dimensions
Power Cord
8.8 Build Quality
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV features a bulky but solid and vigorous build with parts fitting tightly together. The materials are not exceptional but it has the sleekest and smoothest finish of all the machines we’ve tested.
Since we’ve been having this unit for more than a year, we can attest to its durability: After vigorous test sessions and the occasional sharpening tasks, our Trizor XV is still looking and working like new. The only part that suggests wear and tear is the white stropping discs, which have now acquired black blaze on them, and we only learned this when we disassembled the machine for inspection.
1.0 Angle Adjustability
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV doesn’t give you a choice in the grind angle. Unlike other machines, however, this sharpener claims to create a compound bevel with three facets, hence the name Trizor. This means its three sharpening slots work at slightly different angles, and only the third stage can produce the 15 degree edge.
We only saw two facets on the knife edge after sharpening, but it could be the limitations of our magnifying lens.
Interestingly, the user’s manual actually says the grind angle is 14 degrees—we didn’t think it’d make a huge difference but contacted Chef’s Choice about the discrepancy anyway, who confirmed it to be 15 degrees.
Regardless, you can't sharpen your filler knives or cleavers with this machine and maintain their original edge angles.
8.0 Knife Size
With the abrasives placed close to one end of the slots, it’s easy to sharpen knives of different sizes with this machine. You will have to apply a bit of pressure if the knife is particularly short, but most chef’s and utility knives will have no problem going through this one.
That said, the Trizor XV, like most other electric sharpeners, doesn’t accommodate knives with a full tang. You can give them a polish in the third stage, but sharpening with the diamond abrasives in the first two stages will cause ugly recurves.
10 Edge Type
You can sharpen a serrated knife with the Chef’s Choice Trizor XV by using the stropping discs in Stage 3. This won’t sharpen the individual teeth of the serration but will straighten the edge and make it serviceable. If the knife is particularly dull, it’s safe to give it a pair of alternative pulls in Stage 2 beforehand—just don’t overdo it or you’ll soon end up with a plain, smooth edge.
8.7 Ease of Use
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV is simple to use and easy to maintain, even for an electric knife sharpener. It’s really made to simplify sharpening so you can focus on your cooking. A noob can set it up and start sharpening within seconds!
The machine is also better than most at containing metal dust and keeping the temperature and noise to safe levels.
9.0 Setup
Setup can’t be more simple with the Chef’s Choice Trizor XV: put it on the table if it isn’t there already, plug it in, and press the On button to start.
If you keep the machine in the drawer, however, the hefty size and weight may pose a slight challenge for those with weak wrists to take it out.
9.0 Insertion
It’s effortless to place the knife into the right position and angle with the Trizor XV—the spring guides, which are not a feature on most other sharpeners, keep the knife right where it needs to be.
Again, do not apply pressure or you will cut into the plastic frame at the front, especially if the knife is particularly thick and heavy in the first place.
9.0 Stability
With its substantial weight and sturdy design, the Chef’s Choice is extremely stable both as a unit and at the working section. While it’s intuitive to place your spare hand on the device to stabilize it, it really isn’t necessary.
The abrasives all work at a stable pace and position every time, except for the white stropping discs. They seem to be looser than the rest of the abrasives, and every now and then, especially when there’s the smallest change in pressure as we pulled the blade through, the disc would change its turning speed, suggested by the sound. That being said, it’s not startling and doesn’t seem to affect the sharpening process.
8.3 Safety
The Chef’s Choice Trizor XV is one of the safest electric sharpeners we’ve come across.
It’s straightforward to use and doesn’t demand any tricky motions that could trigger an accident. Its angle guides do a nice job keeping the dust from shooting around.
We measured a noise level in the 85 - 90 dB range when sharpening in the coarsest stage. This is a safe level, though it’s significantly higher than the 65 - 75 dB range advertised in the Amazon product description; we think that only reflects the noise produced in the second or third stage. The highest noise we recorded reached 95.2 dB. Exposure to this noise level can cause hearing damage after 50 minutes, so don’t sit around running knives continuously through the coarse stage for so long.
The Trizor XV is also the coolest electrical machine we’ve tested. We mean that literally; even after 25 minutes of continuous sharpening, it stayed at 100 F or lower. The risk of burning is almost non-existent at this temperature.
8.5 Maintenance
The Trizor XV is covered with a 3 years limited warranty, which is more generous than most. You can send it back to the manufacturer to have it fixed if there’s a workmanship issue with the unit.
As one of the most popular electric sharpeners on the market, its replacement parts are easily available for purchase online.