Nesco FD-60 Snackmaster Express Food Dehydrator - 4 Stainless Steel Trays (13.5" x 9.75") for Beef Jerky, Fruit Leather & Healthy Snacks | Includes Jumbo Works Beef Jerky Kit | Perfect for Camping, Hiking & Home Food Preservation | White & Grey

I have been dehydrating copious amounts of fruit late summer into fall for the last 4 years. I have 4 dehydrators and have kept detailed notes about each. I got so much good info with the Amazon reviews when buying the dehydrators that I thought I might help someone out like I was. However, I do remember going back and forth, back and forth between two dehydrators and decided to buy one of each since I needed two anyway.Here's what I've learned through A LOT of experience. The Nsco FD-60 is BY FAR the best dehydrator of the 4. It dries the fastest, about 25-30% faster than my second best, the Nesco FD-75PR. (I'm using model numbers because one of the the most confusing things while trying to decide which to buy was the names of each. They overlap from one model to another, so my advice is to go solely by model numbers when comparing one to another.)The FD-60 is easier to handle because the actual handle on the top lid doesn't flip out like it does on the FD-75PR, makes picking up the lid a bit unwieldly. You've got to balance the lid a bit, whereas the FD-60 has a solid, well designed inverted handle that makes it super easy to lift the lid. I do a lot of lifting, putting the lid down top side down on the counter, and checking, so this is actually a really important feature.Other than the FD-60 drying faster and the lid being easier to handle, I like them both very much. Even though one dries faster than the other, it doesn't dry out the fruit any more than the other one. Both work equally well drying out the fruit very well if the temp is set properly. I go a tad hotter than the suggested temp for fruit, which they suggest 135 degrees. I go to 140 degrees and watch the fruit like a hawk, so it doesn't dry out.One thing to add about the slower FD-75PR - I've chosen this one over the FD-60 when I needed to arrange the drying time, so I'd be home or not asleep when the fruit needed tending to. It takes at least 8 hours to dry even the smallest fruit, so timing is essential, so this slower one is actually better, so I don't have to get up at 5 am, or I can load the trays at 10 pm instead of midnight. It usually takes me 8-11 hours on my faster dehydrator, and my slower dehydrator 9-13 hours to complete all the fruit. I use up to 8 trays, but I like to not go over 7. I've dried as many as 9 in one dehydrator, but that was not optimal. There was way, way, WAY too much checking and rechecking required. I've learned that 7 trays total in any of the dehydrators is where the dehydrators' sweet spots lie.None of my trays have warped, but I only dry fruit, so have never gone over 140 degrees. They clean up well even with dried-on sticky fruit juice and goo when left to soak in a sink of water. I use my dehydrators only about a month a year, but they get intense use in that month, essentially working 24 hours a day for about 4 weeks straight with the only breaks being when I'm washing then reloading the trays with more fruit, which takes about an hour. Of the four dehydrators I have, all make the same amount of noise, so noise level wouldn't play a factor if choosing between these two. My other two dehydrators are heat-from-the-bottom types, and I would not recommend them. Trays have warped when too close to the bottom heat source, so I now always use an empty tray on the bottom. They are the slowest to dry, and they tend to dry out the fruit edges on the lower trays but leave the inner part of the fruit wet, so they're not done, but the edges can fry. In order to have the fruit done properly, there is a lot of high-maintenance work involved. Maybe the higher end dehydrators with the heat source on the bottom work better. The ones I have are older and definitely not as high end, so that could be the problem. Still, logically it makes sense that the heat source from the bottom may make things too hot on the bottom and not hot enough on top. I know that heat rises, but for some reason, it's just too hot on the bottom and not hot enough on top, so I'm constantly shifting trays from one level to another to accommodate these heat-from-the-bottom dehydrators.I would enthusiastically recommend both the FD-60 and FD-75PR, but if I could only buy one, hands down, I'd buy the FD-60 because it's faster and the handle is better designed for how I use it - frequent checking, so lots of handling and having to invert the lid onto the counter as I check the fruit - super easy to pick back up without the flip-out lid.