Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Simple and effective
I tried this sharpener (for practice) on the ...Farberware knives I hadn't touched since I tried Henckels 4-star and Pro-S knives. These knives had been beaten up from throwing them in the dishwasher, and the Twinsharp put a very serviceable edge on the Farberware slicing knife; while not as effective or well-balanced as the Henckels knives, it *would* once again, smoothly and without fuss, cut through an onion. Be careful about the downward pressure you apply - a little more may be required at first, but a light pressure and smooth motion is required for the final finishing strokes, and you want to tilt the knife to keep the EDGE parallel to the countertop at the point the sharpener touches.I then ran my 6-month old Henckels chef's knife, which was still pretty effective, though the sharpener. The knife cuts much more smoothly, and the sharpener eliminated any "dead spots" in the cutting edge. In addition, this sharpener smoothed out the three nicks that resulted when the knife slipped while I was washing it, bouncing off the drain of my stainless sink... if you look close you can still tell where they were, but the edge is greatly improved; a bit more use and a sharpening or two, and it should be visually impossible to tell the difference. Just for kicks (and probably disobeying a few common-sense safety rules) I sharpened a dollar-store stainless pizza cutter, holding the sharpener to the floor with my boot and holding the cutter handle with one hand and rotating the blade (to simulate pulling a knife through) with the other. The cutter, which had previously been a pain ...and required a bit of pressure, cut right through a Tombstone pizza on the first pass. I don't know if it will work for serrated knives, but for smooth-edged knives this sharpener seems very effective and easy to use - just hold the handle solidly against the counter and pull the knife through, keeping the cutting edge in good contact. The sharpener design and knife guides make it easy to hold the knife square in relation to the sharpening elements, resulting in a clean edge. The lefties are correct in their comments; this sharpener IS designed for a right-handed person, and there is no left-handed alternative available, but I found it to work very well for me.
Rating:  - It does the job
I don't have the best knives in the world...and they're quite old. They've only been sharpened once in 10 years. They were barely able to cut anything anymore. I thought I would invest in a modest sharpener just to see if this would sharpen before I needed to purchase new knives. All I can tell you is that you just need to hold the knife over an onion and it seems to melt right through. I don't know whether that just meant it honed the knife like the Amazon reviewer noted, but all my knives now are as sharp as they can be.
Rating: - Sharp Edge Quick & Easy
Most of todays kitchen knives are hard stainless steel. Therefore, they fail to properly take an edge when in need of sharpening. At the factory, the first edge is ground in and unlike the directions say, that edge sooner or later requires touching up. The Henckels Twinsharp Knife Sharpener does just that. A few quick "pull thru's" and the blade is dressed no matter the level of steel blade hardness. So, if you are not a master of the sharpening steel and want to do fast and easy food prep. Then by all means consider the Twinsharp. It really works, but sooner than later you will need to find a way to get get you kitchen knives fully sharpened.
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