Comments about Soto Table Top Grill:

This is a great little bbq grill that is very portable. You can take it with you car-camping, on picnics, or just use it in your backyard when you only need to cook a little bit of stuff. The grill is only 12" round, so be sure that small size is going to work for you before getting it. It is smaller and more portable than a Weber Smokey Joe.

This thing may be small, but it is heavy - you don't want to be hiking with it. It's not at like a lightweight Weber Little Smokey Joe. The Soto seems to get hotter and retain heat longer than a 14" Smokey Joe - a Smokey Joe will cool down much faster than the Soto - something to keep in mind on a picnic! We use Steamproof Ove-Gloves when handling it. The Soto is more fussy to use than the Weber with special handles and such to deal with the very hot parts of the grill, but the Soto uses less charcoal and cooks fast and well. The grill height is adjustable on the Soto, and
you can use the lid as a non-stick frying pan too, which we haven't done yet. This feature makes it more versatile for camping. We have used a 12" saute pan from a Cobb grill though on the Soto, and it works better on the Soto than the Cobb. (Note that the Cobb grill is more like a charcoal oven than a bbq grill - the Soto really
is a baby bbq grill.)

The carrying bag that comes with the Soto is truly terrible and useless. But the grill fits perfectly in a 12" Lodge Dutch Oven bag. Given the price of this bbq grill, they should at least include a useable carrying bag. But the Lodge bag also holds our 12" Cobb saute pan with the Soto, which we'll be using for car camping.

So would you get a Weber Smokey Joe or a Soto? If I was just using the grill in my backyard or on an occasional picnic, I'd go for the super inexpensive, very good little Weber. But we also want to be able to use a bbq grill when camping, and we don't have much room for a grill, so the Soto is the answer for us. It gives us cooking versatility in a small, heavy footprint. You can also use the Soto on a wood picnic table and the wood won;t get too hot under the grill.

The Soto is definitely an expensive niche item. It happens to fill the niche for us along with a hard anodized aluminum GSI dutch oven. The dutch oven in it's bag plus the Soto grill with saute pan in its bag, both take up less room in the car than one 14" Weber Smokey Joe. Add some charcoal, some Diamond Match Strike fire-starters, some Texsport anodized non-stick cookware, plus a campfire, and we can cook anything!