I've found the most important thing for me is how easy it is to clean. For a home slicer, it is an every now and then event. And if cleaning is a pain in the butt, then you are not going to use it. The commercial machines are great, but they can be a long, involved process to clean. You might be able to find them for a great price though. But if you just dread using it because your small job is not worth the time it takes to clean the slicer, then it is not useful. If it means I must go a little slower for the small slicing job I have on a less powerful, but easy to clean machine, then I'm happy to go slower.