As noted with my other reviews of camping/hiking equipment, don't use a tool for a use that it was not designed for.

This little guy is a single burner width of about 3/4-1 inche. It pushes out some heat fast. The only thing I used it for was for heating water in my snow peak cup (view in pic). We used the hot water in there for coffee, tea, and MRE prep. Gets 1-2 cups of water boiling in about 3 mins. We were at moderate sea level (1200ft) with moderately solid wind (Great Lakes constant normal breeze).

Don't try and use this on any larger cooking pot/container or your will get spotting and burning. If you plan to cook more food or cook in a larger pan/pot you need to get a wider stove throw (like 3-4 inches). I think people buy this for the price but expect it to heat an entire pot of beef stew...I would not suggest that activity with this guy.

But very solid with heating small cups of liquid. And for carrying a small stove (plus canister) that will achieve that task.

Love this product. Had a cup and small pot both on it this weekend, and they both stayed on fine even full of boiling water. It is very compact and lightweight too! The piezo ignition didn't work, but a match or lighter is an easy solution. Very solid purchase. Used it about 20 times now and it still is working great. Haven't had to maintenance it in a year yet. Boils water quickly! Compared to other pocket stoves that are 5x the price, I see almost no difference except the cooking arms aren't as wide as other stoves, which if you can find level ground is no problem anyways assuming you can properly center a pot or cup on it. I've never had an issue with that. Super good value though!

1 year update:

Been using this stove fairly regularly for about a year now (over 40 times), and it is still doing surprisingly well! I haven't even cleaned it or had to do any maintenance and it is working as it did on day one. Very happy with this purchase! Highly recommend it!

I didn't expect much from a $10 burner, and thought there was a mistake when I open the package. There's no way it can be this small! But yes, it is a tiny stove that will get the job done in a pinch. Don't get me wrong, if you're going on a 2-week camping trip you'll want something heavier duty, but for a day trip it will work just fine. I have one in my emergency bag, which is perfect because it's light weight and tiny (did I mention it's tiny??). It's about the size of a couple zippo lighters (not counting the fuel source, obviously).

Make sure your fuel is sturdy, since there is no built-in base on this stove. It's meant to screw into a fuel can which holds everything upright. You'll have to keep an eye on whatever's cooking, because there isn't a large diameter to hold a pot in place, but I was still really impressed after testing it.

If you're a person who loves tiny machines that get the job done or someone who likes to be prepared, buy this an throw it in your bug-out bag! For $10 you really can't go wrong. Don't expect the feature of a $50 stove, this isn't made to compete with that. It really depends on what you're buying this for, but if you factor in the cost it's one of those "why not?" purchases since everything works so well.

I just got into backpacking in the summer of 2015 and purchased this as an inexpensive, entry-level stove. I was drawn toward it because it comes with a built-in igniter and a very simple design (which in my experience means it will be less prone to breaking).

When I got the Etekcity stove and tested it out I was very pleased that the igniter works--and it actually works quite well. Fires right up. I was also surprised and pleased at how small this stove is, although at first I worried that due to the size a pot may fall off easily. But with the little arms that extend out to hold the pot, I had no problems in any of my tests or when I was out on a 3 day backpacking trip in the high Uintas in Utah. I was able to boil 2-3 cups of water within just a few min. (If you absolutely need to have water boiling in less than 5-7 min your problem is not the stove...)

The adjustment nob is just a screw that widens and constricts the valve where the gas flows in, so to turn the stove on "high" you turn the adjusting screw counter-clockwise, and to turn it off you turn it clockwise. Not a big deal to me but it is opposite of what I expected.

The one problem I do see with the design is that there are no windshields on the burner. Cooking with this stove out in the open with no cover could cause problems if the wind kicked up. A design like the MSR PocketRocket solves for this, but you are going to pay 3x more for it, which in most cases probably isn't worth it in my opinion. Spend the extra money on some nicer hiking boots or a water pump :)

At $9-$15 (I noticed the price fluctuates pretty frequently) this thing is an EXCELLENT value, especially as a first stove for folks just getting into backpacking. It would also fit very easily into a 72-hour kit or bug-out bag. If I had a chance to make this decision all over again, I'd buy this stove again.

This is a great little stove. It comes folded up in a plastic case measuring a tiny 3-1/4" x 2-1/4" x 1-5/8". After screwing it onto the top of a gas canister (ordered separately), it is ready to go. It did ignite once, somewhat reluctantly, with the attached piezo ignition (I also used a lighter) and provides a very hot concentrated flame. However, due to its small size, the fold-out legs which support your pot or pan are only 3-5/8" wide out-to-out when extended and a little flippy, which is insufficient to hold any decent size of cooking vessel. For this I give it only 4 stars.

However, I was intrigued by the potential of this stove, and decided to see if I could improve on the support issue. My solution was to fabricate a kind of trivet made from (4) 1" sections of a metal tent peg and some 1/8" dia. wire as shown. It fits down over the stove legs when cooking, and stores inside my cook pot. Now my teapot and cook pot are supported on a stable base with no tendency to slide off as before. This particular fix is probably beyond the capabilities of many viewers, but there may be other, easier, ways to achieve this result that would be well worth exploring. The stove boiled 2 cups of water in my teapot in 2-1/2 minutes outdoors in below freezing temperature! I'm looking forward to using this on motorcycle camping adventures next summer.