Panasonic NE-1054F Countertop Commercial Microwave Oven Stainless Steel with 10 Programmable Memory and Touch Screen Control, 0.8 Cu. Ft, 1000W

Replaced a 5+ year old Panasonic that had heavy use daily. On some weekends with family over at our house, this is used to cook several 1 pound bacon packages, which repeatedly runs the unit 10 minutes at a time. Definitely the stress from longer operating times are harder on the microwave generating "magnetron tube" and electronics. Most other namebrand household duty microwaves lasted us only a year or so. The reason we love this panasonic inverter/vari-wave: It uses an inverter, which is like an accelerator pedal in a car. It lowers the output power by reducing the output of microwave energy. Most other standard brands just cycle 100% power using an "on and off" method. (at a 50% setting - half of the time 100% power is turned on, then half of the time zero power off - in a 10 to 15 second window that repeats to vary the power over time). Imaging driving your car this way; pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor to hit 100 mph, then coasting back to zero and repeating again. You may average 50 mph, (like a 50% setting) but the repeated cycling on and off tears up your vehicle, simarly the 100% to zero then back on to 100% cycle on your food in a microwave is not the same as food cooked in a Panasonic inverter controlled at a reduced power over time. The turbo defrost works really well. You select type of meat, weight and load food into the microwave and hit start. It follows a programmed power setting that starts off high, then reduces, and beeps to remind you to turn (or flip over) the food item abouth 1/2 way if you choose to do so. Or you can ignore and let it continue to defrost. By comparison, this model does not overheat and cook the outer edges like other brands of microwaves have in our experience. If you ever have foods that are rated for lower wattage microwave, like 1,000 watts, you can run this Panasonic on a power setting of 8 and perfectly cook your food to match the manufacturer's test kitchen results. Or you can let it cook on the full ~1200 watt power setting but definitely at a reduced timer setting. When using the pre-programmed Popcorn button, you select the ounce size of bag you are popping and hit start. As others have pointed out - you may find that it has burnt your popcorn. BUT the next time you cook popcorn, after you press the Popcorn button, select your size of bag - THEN before you hit start, you can adjust the time shorter or longer using the "More/Less" button to adjust to your preferences. This allows those who like slightly burnt to add more time. Most of us wanting that just right cooked bag find that using less time pops a perfect bag. Be aware that Popcorn cook time varies slightly among brands of popcorn. The Sensor Reheat works extremely well, considering it does not use a probe. The "quick minute" button allows you to place food in the microwave, press this button once, then hit start. Also nice feature- while it is cooking, let's say that you realize the cheese is not melting, so you need to add more time. You could wait for the timer to run out and then restart then oven for another minute. But you also can hit the "quick minute" while it is cooking and it adds one minute to the running cook time. Our primary uses for a microwave are reheating foods, defrosting frozen items, cooking bacon (on special microwave bacon trays lined with paper towels, be sure the bacon is not flat, but humped in the middle off of the paper so it doesn't stick to paper), melting butter on LOWER power level, & boiling water

Buying a new appliance is always a challenge. Which brands give you the most features for the best price. How reliable are they, and what type of warranty do they carry? Microwaves are a particularly difficult appliance to buy, as there are distinct differences in types of microwaves available,counter top. over-oven, straight microwave, microwave /convection combo, with a browning element or without, food probes, as well as different price points, you get the picture. Yes, this little appliance can be challenge. We recently replaced an eighteen year old Sharp microwave with a new microwave. In doing so, we did the usual research online and in the store. After several days of research, we found that one can buy a very good microwave, without breaking the bank. We opted for a counter top model, similar to our old one in size. We wanted to replace it with one that was large enough to be used not only to reheat meals, but also to cook meals in quickly. We decided not to get a combination convection and microwave oven, much more expensive to buy and maintain, as more things have to be fixed if something goes wrong. Besides, our regular oven does an excellent job of baking things quickly and efficiently. After we settled on the size and type of microwave we wanted, we looked at the various brands, we compared features available and settled on the Panasonic NH765BF Full Size 1.6 Cubic Feet 1250 Watt Microwave oven, very reasonably priced, $117 including free shipping from Amazon. It has a quick and easy learning curve to operate it, great features such as inverter technology so food cooks, heats and defrosts evenly, (including a turbo defrost feature), Timer feature(kitchen timer/stand time/ delay start), sensor cook feature, sensor reheat feature, a popcorn feature and more. We have used our microwave for a little over a month now, and we have found the features on this oven to be both easy to use and time saving. The Panasonic warranty also was a selling feature. This microwave oven enjoys a one year parts and labor, (except the Magnatron) and a five year MAGNATRON parts, one year labor warranty. This is a better warranty than other microwave brands, which are usually only one year. We purchased it through Amazon.com, where we found the best price, prompt delivery, and excellent service as usual.

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