Short version: the Easy Edge is the electric sharpener that behaves least like an electric sharpener. Instead of dragging a blade through fixed abrasive slots, it runs flexible grinding beltsagainst the edge, so the abrasive bends to follow the blade’s own curve. Three one-touch programs replace the rod, the stone and the strop. It is made in the USA, it costs what a decent combination whetstone plus a good rod costs several times over, and the one thing a Japanese-knife owner needs from it — the 10° Asian blade guide — is sold separately.
That last point is the reason this review exists on a site mostly about Japanese knives. Everything else about the machine is better-judged than its competitors; the thing it asks you to buy twice is the thing that matters most here.
What the belts actually change
Every fixed-slot electric sharpener works the same way: two rigid abrasive wheels are held at a set angle, you pull the blade between them, and whatever geometry the knife arrived with is converted to the machine’s. It is fast and it is consistent, and it is also why a lot of good knives come out of a lot of kitchen drawers with a bevel nobody chose.
A belt is different in one specific way. Because the abrasive is flexible, it conforms along the length of the blade — the curve from heel to tip, the belly, the taper into the tip. Wüsthof describes the machine as having “three stages for the honing, sharpening and fine polishing of blades, replacing coarse sharpening steels, fine whetstones and finishing with leather and polish,” and the published feature list is short and unusually concrete: “Flexible grinding belts,” “Integrated dust suction,” “Interchangeable angle guide,” “Replaceable PEtec blade guide,” “Intelligent ‘One Touch’ program control” and an “Anti-slip rubber base.”
Be precise about what flexing does and does not buy you, because the marketing is not. The belt follows the blade’s profile. The bevel angleis still set by a rigid guide, exactly as on any other machine. So the Easy Edge is gentler about your blade’s shape and no more permissive about its angle.
The angle, and the guide that is not in the box
Wüsthof publishes no sharpening angle on the Easy Edge product page at all — no degrees, and no wattage or weight either. The figures live in its FAQ: “Our sharpening angle for standard blades is 14˚ per side, and for Asian-style blades (Santokus, Nakiris) is 10˚ per side.” The same answer recommends “using the same brand sharpener as your knife collection, to ensure that the material used is the correct hardness for the steel on your knives” — which is both self-serving and a real point about matching abrasive to steel.
The Easy Edge ships with the standard guide. Getting the Asian one means buying the Upgrade Set (7918), whose own page states the position plainly: “Asian blades need to be sharpened at a different angle to European ones and therefore require this Asian blade guide, which can be set up in just a few simple steps.” So Wüsthof’s claim that “Asian knives can also be sharpened with the Electric Knife Sharpener” is true, with an asterisk it does not print next to the claim.
Now the part that matters if your knives are Japanese. Shun grinds its Classic line to 16° each sideand hardens VG-MAX to “60-61 Rockwell” — both figures from Shun’s own FAQ. Put that knife on the standard 14° guide and you are not maintaining it, you are reprofiling it two degrees thinner. Put it on the 10° Asian guide and you are reprofiling it six degrees thinner, which means a lot of metal removed and a more fragile edge at the end of it. Neither is a disaster; neither is maintenance. The angle guide covers what reprofiling costs, and sharpeners for Japanese knives is where to look if that is your drawer.
On Wüsthof’s own knives the arithmetic is the opposite and the machine makes total sense: Wüsthof publishes 58 Rockwell for its forged blades and grinds them to the same 14° the standard guide holds. Machine and knife were designed to the same number, which is as close to a matched pair as this category gets.
Three buttons, and the cadence behind them
The one-touch control is the best-designed thing here. The live listing publishes what each program is for: “Use the Shape button if your knife is very dull or has damage to repair”, “The Sharpen button exposes a fresh cutting edge, monthly,” and “Use Refine to maintain your edge weekly.”
That maps cleanly onto the three things a sharpening kit does — coarse repair, edge setting, finishing — which is exactly how Wüsthof frames it on its own page. For someone who has never worked out whether their knife needs a rod or a stone, having the machine make that call is genuinely the feature.
Our one reservation is the cadence. Refine weekly and Sharpen monthly is a lot of abrasive contact for a knife that is only getting dull from cutting food. Every motorized pass removes steel you do not get back, and twelve Sharpen cycles a year is a measurable amount of blade over the life of a knife. A kitchen-realistic routine: Refine when the knife starts dragging on a tomato skin, Sharpen only when Refine stops bringing it back, Shape only after real damage. Our page on how often to sharpen a knife sets out how to tell the difference, and how to test knife sharpness is the ten-second check that should decide it rather than the calendar.
What Wüsthof does not publish
Three gaps, and the first is the one we would most like closed.
No belt grit for the belts in the box. Nowhere on the product page. The only grits Wüsthof publishes anywhere for this system are on the Upgrade Set page: “1 x coarse / 120ZA, 2 x medium / 120, 1 x fine / X30 AO, 1 x ultra-fine / X4 AO.” Those are the upgradebelts. We are not going to quietly present them as the machine’s own, so the specification table below records the included grits as not published.
No angle on the product page. You have to go to the FAQ for the 14° and 10° figures, which is a strange place to keep the single most important number about a sharpener.
No wattage and no weight. The listing gives the footprint — “7 x 4.5 x 5" tall” — and Wüsthof gives the origin, “USA.” Beyond that the machine’s own numbers are absent.
What Wüsthof publishes for the Easy Edge, and what it does not| | Published figure |
|---|
| Abrasive | Flexible grinding belts |
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| Belt grit (included set) | Not published |
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| Belt grit (Upgrade Set 7918) | 120ZA coarse, 120 medium x2, X30 AO fine, X4 AO ultra-fine |
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| Stages | Three — Shape, Sharpen, Refine |
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| Published cadence | Refine weekly, Sharpen monthly |
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| Standard angle | 14° per side (Wüsthof FAQ, not the product page) |
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| Asian-blade angle | 10° per side — guide sold separately in the Upgrade Set |
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| Dust handling | Integrated dust suction |
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| Footprint | 7 x 4.5 x 5" tall (listing) |
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| Country of origin | USA |
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| Warranty | 3 years (listing) |
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| Wattage / weight | Not published |
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Cost of ownership
Belts are a consumable. Wüsthof sells a Spare Belt Set (7918-1) for exactly that reason, and the Upgrade Set is the other repeat line item if you own Japanese knives. Against that, a whetstone is close to a one-off: you flatten it occasionally and it lasts years, which is the argument how long does a whetstone last makes with the numbers.
So the comparison is not sticker price against sticker price. It is a premium machine plus belts plus possibly a guide, against a $35 combination stone plus about an hour of learning. If the hour is the obstacle, the machine is a reasonable purchase. If it is not, it is not.
Who should buy it
Buy it ifyour knives are German or German-style, you will not use a stone, and you want the electric that is least likely to wreck a blade’s shape. The belt mechanism, the three programs, the dust suction and the anti-slip base all point the same way: this is the considered version of a convenience product.
Think twice ifyour knives are Japanese — price in the Upgrade Set, and understand you will be reprofiling a 16° Shun edge to whichever guide you fit. Hard, thin Japanese edges are the case where a stone is not just better value but better practice, and the whetstone roundup starts around a tenth of what this machine costs.
Skip it ifyou want the fastest, cheapest route to sharp and do not care about geometry — the fixed-slot machines on our electric roundup do that for much less — or if you already own a stone and know what to do with it, in which case this machine removes metal you do not need to lose. Whetstone vs electric sharpener is the underlying decision, and professional knife sharpening is the third option for anyone who wants neither a machine nor a stone.
The verdict
The Easy Edge earns its place as the gentlest electric we can point at: flexible belts that follow the blade, a sensible three-stage program, dust suction, and a maker that publishes its angles even if it hides them in the FAQ. On Wüsthof’s own 58 Rockwell forged knives, ground to the same 14° the machine holds, it is a matched tool and an easy recommendation.
The two honest marks against it are both about disclosure and packaging rather than engineering: no grit published for the belts you actually receive, and a 10° Asian guide that a Japanese-knife owner needs and has to buy separately. Neither is a reason to avoid the machine. Both are reasons to know what you are buying before the box arrives.