Amazing HOTO EdgeFlow Cordless Electric Scissors: This week I have another handy home tool in a class of its own. Much like the blower/dusters, reading about it is one thing, but experiencing it really opens your eyes to what it can do.

The HOTO EdgeFlow Cordless Electric Scissors are rechargeable and have a quarter-inch opening with a guide and blade guard next to a spinning, self-sharpening faceted blade. (I showed it to an artist friend and he made the comment that the facets would duplicate the actual cutting action of a pair of scissors.) There is a small safety button that you push before squeezing the trigger. Once the disc starts spinning you can release the safety and start cutting. That leads to my first tip. Don't put the scissor disc to the material and start it spinning. Get it spinning before you push into the material to be cut.

With today's internet economy, we get bombarded with cardboard boxes. Breaking them down by tearing them or cutting with scissors or a box cutter gets the job done, but there is a certain amount of risk involved with bladed objects, your hands get sore, and it is still a tedious chore. The HOTO scissors make it fun as they effortlessly cut through cardboard like a smooth, quiet buzzsaw. You can cut through cardboard practically as fast as you can push the scissors, and the amount of resistance isn't quite like the proverbial hot knife through butter, but is probably easier than a knife through refrigerator-cold butter. Not only can you chop up a cardboard box quickly and easily, you could probably turn it into confetti if that's what you wanted to do.

I also tried cutting a piece of paper, and had a perfect test sheet. I just renewed my vehicle registration and only the bottom 20% of the printed page goes with the car. I got my registration, started the scissors spinning and ran through the paper. The cut was very neat, but not perfectly straight. I printed out another copy and tried again, holding the paper more firmly this time. The neat, even cut could have come from a paper cutter.

The scissors can also cut through fabric, carpet or leather and are said to have craft applications as well. Based on my experience they would excel at any task where you cut with scissors or a box cutter, as long as the material fits in the quarter-inch opening. They retail for $69.99 and using the month's discount code HOTOJUNE on hototools.com reduces the price $20 to $49.99. You can see them in action on the HOTO website as well. Like the blower/dusters, I expect readers will be contacting me with new applications for this handy device once they try it for themselves!

Q. I have a 55-inch television and am trying to decide between the $249.99 ZVOX AV835 and $349.99 AV855 before the sale is over. They look very similar. I like good sound, but I really want to understand the dialogue better.

—T.B., Eureka, Missouri

A. You won't go wrong either way, but I would go with the AV855 if it is within your budget. It matches the size of your television perfectly and not only does it make dialogue dramatically easier to understand, it effortlessly fills the room with high-quality sound competitive with $1,000 soundbars. The 20% discount code DAD20 on zvox.com does expire on Father's Day, so if you want to get one I would order it by then. Regularly $369.99, a $20 discount combined with the 20% off code reduces the AV855 to $280.

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