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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Cooks consistently
By Wayne
There are a lot of differences among microwave ovens these days. There are ranges of features, ways to program them, as well as preprogrammed cooking cycles for everything from making popcorn to softening ice cream. But the true test of a good microwave oven is how well it cooks. Some foods are more difficult than others. And having flexible programming cycles is what makes today's microwave ovens so much different from early ones where the only option was cook time.Virtually all home microwave ovens have a popcorn button these days, and surprisingly not all of them work as well as they should, but if you merely want a microwave oven to make popcorn or heat a frozen burrito for the amount of time mentioned on the package, I can recommend microwave ovens for less money. If you've read my reviews of other microwave ovens, you know that. But that doesn't mean this model falls short when it comes to those tasks. Its strength though is that it does much more.When you want to go beyond basic reheating, this Amana is worthy of your consideration. And it's no slouch when it comes to reheating either. I've found that among the most difficult foods to get right in a microwave oven are chicken cutlets. It's easy to get them spongy or rubbery and inedible when overdone. And underdone chicken can't be eaten. Even harder to get right is fish. And harder than that is frozen chicken or fish. If you've ever overcooked salmon or tuna, or had a piece that was frozen in the middle, you know what I mean. To test this oven, I tried a frozen Mojito Salmon dinner from Trader Joe's. This oven allowed me to press a defrost button, a time, a cook button, a time, and a start button. The result was perfection. It was tender and evenly cooked, sufficiently hot but not overcooked or tough in any spots.Reheating used to be a guessing game, but newer microwave ovens such as this one have sensor reheat buttons. That allows you to press a single button, start it, and let it figure out how long to cook things. I tested this by reheating some homemade chicken Marsala. The oven figured out how long to cook, and it came out fully reheated with no loss of texture, or other damage to the food. Aside from a slight caramelized appearance to the sauce at the periphery of the plate, the food itself was perfect. But it could have used slightly less cooking. Reheating meat on the other hand showed why competing companies have multiple programs for sensor cooking. This one overdid things. If I have to monitor how long something cooks, that defeats the purpose of the sensor.The company's website mentions a "more/less" feature, but that's noticeably absent from this oven or its instructions. It's a feature present in competing models such as those from Panasonic, and it's a feature I miss when using sensor cooking. The limited number of programs also leaves out many non-sensor cooking settings. In all fairness most people probably won't use all the cooking settings on competing brands, but if you want to cook oatmeal or melt chocolate, you will need to figure out time and power settings on your own. If you are big on prepared foods with heating directions, that won't be an issue. But you do get the more important ones such as fresh and frozen vegetables, pizza reheat, potato, soup, and beverage. The beverage function has disappeared from other brands even including a Panasonic Genius with 19 cook programs. But it's one I use more often than the ones that Amana left out. It heated a mug of water to about 180 degrees F, which is a tad above the minimum for Starbucks coffee, a tad below McDonald's coffee and slightly less than the 190 degrees of an InSinkErator Hot Water Dispenser. For me, that's right where it should be.Another limitation of this microwave oven is two consecutive cooking cycles. You can't program it to wait an hour, defrost two lbs by weight, and cook at 80% for half an hour. Realistically it's rare that I use even two consecutive cycles, but it wouldn't have cost them much to program this one to accept more cycles. On the plus side, the timer function works independently of the cooking functions, which for me is a benefit. Needing to time things while the microwave is running happens far more often than needing to have a timed non-cooking stage.This microwave oven has nice aesthetics, a clear and easy to read display, an easy to clean finish, and a light that goes on when the door is open. You may take the last three for granted, but it would be a mistake to do that with many competing models from other manufacturers. It's also the quietest microwave oven I've owned.Overall, this microwave oven is a good buy for the price. It has the features that you need for practical purposes. It can be mounted in a cabinet with an optional trim kit, but has the lower cost of a free standing unit. Its width is identical to Amana microwave ovens from a couple of decades ago, so if you want to mount this in an existing cabinet, you can. The Amana that it replaced lasted almost two decades, and this newer and less expensive one cooks much better. If it's half as reliable as its predecessor it will be a bargain.And it has a full 1.6 cu. ft. cavity, which is even larger than Amana's more expensive wall mountable model, which I expect to review soon. This microwave might not have all the features I'd like to see, but it has the ones that most people will use day to day.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
INTERIOR ABSOLUTE BEAR TO CLEAN and....
By DM
I uploaded pictures of the interior so you could see its biggest drawback.1. When I press start it sounds like my old '71 Datsun 510 starting up. Like a tin can. If I put my hand on the right hand side it stops vibrating. Update: 1/20/13 it no longer does that. Why? I couldn't guess.2. It takes 3 times longer to heat anything with this MW than my nine y/o old (now dead) Kenmore.3. INTERIOR ABSOLUTE BEAR TO CLEAN Not a smooth surface in it! Depressions on all four sides and lots of open grill work (2 sides and back), 3 tabs sticking out of the back ceiling grill work just waiting to catch onto your sponge . Plus all seams, but 2 bottom sides, are OPEN seams! Waiting for food/water to drip into them.4. Feet do not stop it from skidding around on wood.5 Beep is real loud and sounds 5 times, continuing even after you open the door.6. No pre-programmed quick defrost, like old micro. Took 10mins to defrost what took <2mins in old Kenmore!7. Pre-programs do not start automatically like old micro. You have to press start.8. The display can not be seen in anything but bright light.9. Steam gets in between the outer and inner door glass.10. If you open the door in middle of a pre-programmed function (turn over a sweet potato say) it cancels the whole deal and you have to start over again. Really11. The clear plastic covering the display is bubbly all over and is coming up over the start and stop buttons.No I do NOT recommend this microwave. I would never buy again and am seriously thinking of returning and buying another Kenmore. But I don't use Micros all that much... just to heat, reheat, occasional defrost. I do not cook with it.What drew me to this particular microwave oven was its door. I like having a real handle, was wary of a push button (read all the bad reviews on the Panasonics push button door and ran into the Panasonic model I was thinking of getting at Bi-Mart and the door didn't work!, it was broke. Ran into another Panasonic at Walmart and the door was very very hard to open and close)I figured it had been 9 yrs so surely 2012 micros would be better designed. Not so with this one. In fact my Kenmore micro from the mid 1980s was better cleaning, power and noise wise than this.In 1947, Raytheon built the "Radarange", the first commercially available microwave oven. In 1965, Raytheon acquired AMANA. In 1967, they introduced the first popular home model, the countertop Radarange, at a price of US$495 ($3,450 in today's dollars). You'd think microwave manufactures would have it down pat by now, but alas no. Panasonic seems to be the least objectionable to people here on Amazon. At Consumer Reports no one likes any of them! This Amana had good, though few, reviews here, so I took a chance. I lost.I bought this locally for $200 at Kellenburger Appliance - nice folks
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Does the Trick Nicely (UPDATED)
By Jeff Kraus
This microwave replaces a trusty high-end Panasonic for one major reason: after moving to a new house we realized how much smaller the new kitchen is, and the 2.2 cu ft Panasonic was a little too big. Of course, it turned out that for the measly 16% reduction in counter space footprint (which ended up being a negligible 2 inches in width and 1.5 inches in depth), the Amana's interior space was reduced by 33% (a reduction of 3 inches width, 1.75 inches depth, and 1 inch height).But enough about that. The Amana is here now, and performance-wise it's the same 1200W of power, just in a smaller package.It has a reduced feature set compared to my previous microwave, but most of that stuff I never touched anyway. I did get accustomed to the fly-by-wire electronic dial for setting time, which was much faster than the standard button pressing, so going back to the old method of time entry was a bit annoying at first. I also am not particularly a fan of the microscopic red icons all around the time display, which attempt to tell you information about what mode you are in, etc. but fail to do so in any reasonable way. They all look basically the same and they're so small you need to get right up on them to see what they are. I have a full-color touchscreen display on the remote control for the TV, for crying out loud! How hard would it be to put that on a microwave?Anyway, there's another issue that I have, concerning the consistency of instructions and ease of use. For example, you can enter the time and hit start if you just want to microwave at full power. So what if you want to cook at 60% power? Enter the time, hit "Power Level", then hit 6 and Start? Nope. If you enter the time, it won't let you hit Power Level. You also can't select Power Level first. You must hit another button "Cook Time" BEFORE you enter the time (but only if you want to change the power level!), and THEN you can hit Power Level, 6, Start.All of this, though... it's a bit temporary. I mean, I'll get used to the stupid icons that mean nothing to me and look like a helicopter in a tornado (I still don't know what that one represents). The most important thing is how it cooks, and from what I can tell it cooks very nicely. The leftover meats and mashed potatoes get reheated evenly and I can boil a mug of water in it. They tray spins (it broke on the last microwave). My needs are simple, and my needs are met. I may have nitpicky issues with it, but overall it's performing exactly as I had hoped.UPDATE 04/23/2013 : Well some time around the beginning of April, while I was on an extended business trip, my wife called me to let me know that the microwave had actually stopped working; all functions seemed to work, it whirred like a microwave and spun its little plate around, but no actual warming was happening. Luckily, the trusty old Panasonic had not been tossed, so it has since returned to service. 6-7 months is not a good lifespan for a microwave, and so I've removed another star for my experience. I imagine that this issue is a fluke, or the other reviews would be far worse. Still, it's worth considering if you're thinking about buying this model.
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