OK I finally received it today. Its made of a wooden cigar box, and it certainly is attractive looking, so its got that going for it. It only has one speed and thats full speed, but I think I can probably monkey with it and add a speed control pretty easily.
The first thing I wanted to try and do with it is make some Hefe style yeast from the Dregs of some bottles of Erdinger so I got some wheat DME and made a pint-sized starter. Starter is cooling now, and I'm planning on drinking a sixer of Erdinger tonight and instead of swirling the yeast into my glass, I'm going to swirl the yeast into the starter.
I also noticed that the stirplate seems to go too fast so it throws the stir-bar off the magnets, and it doesn't really want to stay in place and stir very well. It may be because I'm trying to stir in a measuring cup instead of in a beaker or something... I might go to the LHBS tomorrow and pick up a beaker or a different sized stirbar and see if that makes a difference. If not, sooner or later I'm sure I'll want to add a speed control.
All in all, I'd say it was not a bad purchase - under $40 and I would probably have spent close to that if not more trying to find the parts and put it together myself.