Microwave ovens

(13 of 13 customers found this review helpful)

Comment:

We chose white as our color and I installed this unit in my home on 4/20/2012. I have it vented throught an exterior wall in my kitchen to the outside. The unit is mounted so that the bottom is 17 1/2 inches from the cooking surface. I'm not 100% sure but I think the minimum should be not less than 16 inches. We also purchased the additional 5 year in home service plan through Sears. Now to the review which will be lengthy.<br /><br />The 430cfm exhaust is what first attracted me to this unit. On level 1 it will hold a piece of 8x11 paper up. On levels 2-5 it will pull the paper from your hand as you hold it up toward the bottom of the unit. On a down side, the unit is noisy on level 1 but quites down as you level up. The little bit of extra noise is worth the exhaust power this has.<br /><br />The lights on the bottom of the unit that illuminate the cooking surface are the brightest I have ever had on an over the range microwave that I have owned (which would be 4 including this one). The HI setting lights up my entire range top as well as an additional 16 inches of counter top to either side of the range. The draw back is that the front 1/4 of my range is not as brightly lit as the rest. There are 2 recessed lights and are installed toward the front of the unit( 1 in each front corner) and have a 3 x 3 1/2 piece of frosted glass covering them. I still consider the lighting to be very good and think the only improvements to be made would be clear glass, not frosted, and to make the lights so the direction of shine could be manually adjusted with pressing on the edge of the glass. The Nite setting does a great job as a kitchen nite light.<br /><br />Installation was easy. I did have a second person help but I do believe I could have installed it by myself if needed (not advised). The under cabinet template was easy to follow. Just cut and trim as needed and then tape in place. Do yourself a favor (this goes for what ever micro you install) if the bottom of your cabinets are recessed then cut 2 filler blocks of wood. These will be needed for mounting and are mentioned in the instructions. The wall template is actually your mounting bracket. This was the easiest template I have ever used and there is not a lot of measuring. It is in the shape of a U but squared, not rounded. As I mentioned before, I vented through the wall to the outside and that template was easy to follow as well. The one step I skipped during install was that I did not mount the vent cover (or flap) and bracket to the back of the unit. Since my outside vent has a screen and flap I saw no reason to create an extra obstacle to force air through. The one thing I noticed, which I will address with Sears, is that the top of the unit doesn't seem to sit tight against the bottom of my cabinet. It is only tight where my mounting screws are otherwise there is a 1/8 inch gap about 4 inches long. <br /><br />We cook, reheat and defrost with this unit. So far it does all of the above great and you can quick touch in increments of 30 seconds. However, I have not used the True Cook Plus option yet. All the other features are very good, such as disable turntable and control lock. There are plenty of quick touch options as well for things like popcorn or baked potato. Cooking noise is average and I would have thought with the above average performance of this unit that noise control would have been also. It is the noisiest when you first start cooking but does quite a little bit as the cycle runs. <br /><br />Only time will tell on durability, but since I have teenagers in the house we will see if Kenmore took that factor into the design and developement process.<br /><br />I plan to add a follow up to this 6 months from now, unless performance nose dives then it will be sooner, once we get it broke in. Provided this performance holds up it will stay 4 stars. With a couple of changes I mentioned ealier this would be a 5 out of 5. As for now I would recommend this.

How long have you owned it:

A month or less

Bottom Line

Yes, I would recommend this to a friend.