I have had mine for about 13 years. I have gone through 3 cutting mats and an upgrade. I have a hard time cutting without it. It makes everything so easy and there wasn't much of a learning curve. It was very intuitive to learn. Right out of the box I cut 25 hexagon blocks. I was making flowers out the hexi's and needed 7 per block. I had them cut in about 10 minutes. I highly recommend it. I have read on here where people have had trouble with accuracy in cutting but I never have.