Panasonic 1.6 Cu. Ft. Cyclonic Wave Microwave Oven

We got this expecting to have a bit of a learning curve, based on the other reviews. However, it’s SO much more simple than we realized. For basic heating (ie, leftovers or a mug of cocoa or a donut or frozen dinner) which is what we use this for 95% of the time, you don’t need to remember anything crazy. There are 2 simple options:

-Use the – + bar right below the clock. Either hold down the plus/minus, tap it, or swipe and hold in either direction and it adjusts the cooking time to what you desire. You can do 1 second increments up to 10 seconds. Then it does 5 second increments up to 1 minute. Then once you reach a minute it does 10 second increments. Then press start (the bottom right button). I use it this way every time I use the microwave and find I do not miss the numbers at all. Super simple and easy.

-The other option is to use the “+30” button, which as you may have already guessed, will bump up the time in 30 second increments. Press start and you’re done. My husband uses this function primarily, and it’s how he also used our old microwave that did have number buttons so this has had no adjustment period for him.

For the less often used functions, there is a very useful legend right on the inside behind the microwave door. So if you’re wanting to do something you don’t usually do like set the cooking timer or the popcorn setting or power levels, etc, simply glance at the inside of the microwave when you put your food inside and you’ll know what you need to press. No need to keep the physical manual and flip through pages every time you want to figure something out. Again, super simple.

As far as the inverter cooking technology, we both notice a difference in how our food is being more evenly cooked. My husband likes to heat his food to boiling hot temperatures so he notices it more than I, who prefers my food lukewarm. But something I really noticed is that when I cook my steel oats in the morning, it NEVER boils over. In our old microwave (which was also Panasonic but not with this new inverter technology), I’d have to put a plate under my oatmeal bowl so when it boiled over it would at least make cleanup easy and I’d just eat out of the sticky, oatmeal covered bowl. To prevent it from happening I’d have to constantly be opening the microwave and stirring the bowl and keeping a very close eye on it once it got hot. With this, the oatmeal boils but it never ever boils over. I don’t know what kind of sorcery this is, but I LOVE not getting my hands coated in oatmeal when I eat in the morning. It’s definitely doing something special.

The other thing I want to note, which may seem really silly to everyone else, but I really love this: if you take your food out before the timer is done, after 5 minutes the screen will automatically reset to show the clock. I use the microwave as my primary clock in the kitchen and sometimes it just really drove me crazy to see the leftover cooking time always on our old microwave instead of the current time of day. This may not matter to everyone, but I personally was just thrilled with this “feature” and it pleases me to no end to simply glance over and see the clock – without needing to grumble to myself about people not pressing the cancel button when they were done with using it – as I walked over to press it myself to see the time. Do I overreact to the time not being on the screen? I’m sure. But now my personal shortcomings don’t matter as much since this fixes that one problem for me!

Overall, after using this for the past 3 weeks I can say we are both extremely pleased with our new microwave. We were expecting some initial frustration while we got used to it, but there really has been none of that and from the first day we both found it very intuitive and easy to use. And the fact that it cooks more evenly than our old microwave is another nice bonus. And I think my husband likes that the buttons make this look like something more futuristic like something he’d imagine on the star trek enterprise. We also got some microwave brackets (from amazon, of course) to mount this under our upper cabinets to make countertops feel more spacious and less cramped and are very happy with that decision. We would definitely recommend this microwave – don’t be intimidated it’s really easier than you’d imagine! Hope this helps you make a more informed decision.

I had some concerns about the interface, but after using the microwave for a few weeks I’m glad that I got it. I mostly use the sensor reheat feature so heating something up is three quick taps, and I don’t have to think about cooking time.

The buttons seem to be capacitative (like a phone touchscreen) so they are nicely responsive, and don’t require any pressure to activate.

In cases where I do want to cook for a certain time, like heating up a sealed edamame packet, I press the “add 30 seconds” several times to get the time I want. I think that would be annoying if I had to do that frequently, but since I only need that for sealed packets it’s ok with me. You can also enter a time by sliding a finger across the swipe bar to set a time in 10-second increments which is pretty responsive (again, it’s like moving a slider on a phone); but it takes three swipes and a little adjustment to enter, e.g., 2 minutes so I think the 30 second button is faster.