Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsJust impressive. Fast, clean - much better than gas or conventional electric
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2019
I have always been a fan of cooking with gas. Just hate electric coil stoves. So while induction is not really new, I had no experience with it and wondered if it could really be better than gas. WELL IT IS. This thing has both a lot more power than my gas cooktop did, as well as much finer control on lower settings, as well as absolutely instant response to control changes. I love having a fixed number to press, rather than just vaguely twisting a knob and peering under the pot to set the flame height by eye. This boils water almost twice as fast as any gas or electric cooker I've ever seen, yet at the same time has much lower and more consistent warming settings. I cooked some spaghetti (quickly) drained and then added sauce, keeping the whole pot on the stove on setting 1 and it kept perfectly warm for 40 min without burning or crusting at all to the bottom of a stainless steel pot. Let me tell you, that would not happen on any other range I've ever used. To cook rice I used to have to place an additional gas burner grate on top of the other to get the pot further from the flame, because low was not quite low enough. On this, after boiling on 9 I just set it to 2 and let it simmer for 20 min never lifting the lid - perfect as a rice cooker.
Instead of paying twice as much for a Bosch or a Samsung, I decided to get this and a couple of really nice French induction capable copper pots. (De Buyer Prima Matera.) Yep, I had to get rid of a set of non-induction ready stainless cookware. But I decided that having two really great beautiful evenly cooking pots rather than a whole set of things I hardly ever use was a good trade. The cast iron I use works great, as well as an All-Clad saucepan and another big stainless stockpot. I used a magnet on the bottom to test all my pots before getting this.
A few minor cons:
The huge round burner in the center is a little puzzling, I don't have a pot or anything nearly that big in diameter (a full 12"). Seems like a bit smaller and re-positioned more evenly would be a better trade but it works.
There is a bit of a buzz hum as well as a small fan noise, but it's fairly low and not really objectionable. It is loudest on P or "power boil" but still not that bad. I'm really sensitive to noise but honestly whatever you are cooking with it's steaming and bubbling and frying sounds will be louder than the hum.
There are really only two power supplies, each split and supplying two of the burners. This means if you want two things to heat up really fast, you need to choose two burners not sharing the same power supply. They also recommend setting one on max and waiting a bit before setting another one on max. This is explained in the instructions, but better to know this limit before you buy. I don't know, maybe the more expensive types don't have such a limitation. I seldom use more than 2 burners at once so it's not really an issue. Not sure I've ever used all four burners at once but I'm sure some people do.
On low settings it is true that the power cycles on-off. However unlike the old style electric coil burner, or a microwave, the cycle is fast like once or twice a second, rather than once every 20 sec or something. The result is even heating and no noticeable pulsing billowing and overheating as with coil elements. And the noise while cycling is fairly faint.
The black glass top has a fine pattern of silver dots and lines, which I guess I didn't really notice from the photos. The pattern may hide slightly the streaks on the glass. It is easy to clean the glass of spills and oil but pretty hard to get it perfectly rid of streaks. At any rate is a huge improvement over all the grates and cavities and wells and white (why!) surface of my old gas cooker that was just a nasty job to clean.
I am getting some silicone burner covers for this to help prevent scratches from the heavy pots on glass. None so far but seems inevitable.
I did get an AMZ extended warranty, but in the box is a card with a much cheaper ext. wty program from Frigidaire. Wish I had know this before hand. It's like 3 extra years for $30. The one I got was I think 4 yrs for $100. Oh well.
Only had this for about 10 days but will edit this if anything goes amiss.
All in all, a very reasonable cost to get into induction cooking with a lot more pluses than minuses. If that seems like a lot of cons they are really only minor considerations because this is still twice as good as any cooktop I've ever used.
