First, it's very dark inside when it's on - only a tiny little light - no light at all when open. It's also very loud. I bought it mainly to melt and/or soften. I think I will be returning this and pay a little more to get something better.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this unit to others. As it's been less than a month, I cannot say how reliable it will end up being though but am keeping my fingers crossed. If we have any problems, I'll update this review.
Overall, we are happy with this product, after about a month of daily use. It's a good compromise between power and size. I wanted a more powerful microwave than our prior, very compact, one. I also wanted to have it be a reasonably small size, so I checked dimensions carefully. This one had the best size/power combination for us.
This model lets you set up to three consecutive cook settings (as opposed to its predecessor's five) so you could set a one hour delay, a cook time at a certain level, and a keep warm stage, for example. Five seemed excessive but I don't see what Panasonic gained by lowering it. In the example they gave in their previous manual, setting a cook time at one level followed by a cook time at a different level (something that instructions on food boxes sometimes suggest) could not be integrated with my example. Once the start button is pressed, all stages will be executed sequentially. The timer stage can be used independently, but not concurrently. With the microwave I'm replacing, I very often used the timer, even while the microwave was cooking. I find that loss a bigger annoyance than the light issue.
Konacoffee
First, it's very dark inside when it's on - only a tiny little light - no light at all when open. It's also very loud. I bought it mainly to melt and/or soften. I think I will be returning this and pay a little more to get something better.
Left Coast Gearhead
Overall, I would definitely recommend this unit to others. As it's been less than a month, I cannot say how reliable it will end up being though but am keeping my fingers crossed. If we have any problems, I'll update this review.
Sharon "Sharon"
Overall, we are happy with this product, after about a month of daily use. It's a good compromise between power and size. I wanted a more powerful microwave than our prior, very compact, one. I also wanted to have it be a reasonably small size, so I checked dimensions carefully. This one had the best size/power combination for us.
Wayne
This model lets you set up to three consecutive cook settings (as opposed to its predecessor's five) so you could set a one hour delay, a cook time at a certain level, and a keep warm stage, for example. Five seemed excessive but I don't see what Panasonic gained by lowering it. In the example they gave in their previous manual, setting a cook time at one level followed by a cook time at a different level (something that instructions on food boxes sometimes suggest) could not be integrated with my example. Once the start button is pressed, all stages will be executed sequentially. The timer stage can be used independently, but not concurrently. With the microwave I'm replacing, I very often used the timer, even while the microwave was cooking. I find that loss a bigger annoyance than the light issue.
Jeffrey Hare
Only had it a week, so can't say whether it's reliable or not.
A. Thompson