Panasonic - 1.6-Cu. Ft. Built-In/Countertop Cyclonic Wave Microwave Oven with Inverter Technology - Stainless Steel

This is a new more automated microwave that takes a little time to learn, but once you understand the censor feature, it’s a lot more accurate in cooking and reheating food! It’s very intuitive and has many pre-programmed functions, but still offers the standard cook time and temp option as well. I find it reheats a plate of food to just the right degree of done-ness without drying out anything on a mixed plate. The sensor relies on the moisture in the food instead of an old-style probe that used temperature as a guide.

We were going through a home remodel, and I bought the product in Dec 2020 but didn’t start using it until summer of 2021. It’s essentially new and worked great until it stopped and gave an error message (H97). My husband reset it and discovered on line that it’s an issue that would cost more to repair than replace. Not good, and this product was recommend by Consumer Reports.

Would definitely recommend this unit – it heats fantastically well – and is light and powerful. It is leaps and bounds beyond our 10-year-old microwave. Pros; Sleek black design with silver stainless steel highlights and feels solidly built (seems all stainless steel). 80% of weight of our old 1.6 cu ft microwave 15-inch turntable vs 12-3/4 inch of our old microwave - even though this unit is slightly smaller in size. How did they manage to do that? Nice sensitivity of touchpad control panel. It only lights when in use (for 6 minutes after door closed or reaching end of cooking time). You decide how complicated or easy it is to operate. You can use the built-in heating/defrosting options or simply press the 30 second addition symbol to get to time you want and press start. Fantastic fast even heating. If you are setting cooking time be prepared to lessen the heating times by maybe 15%. Literature mentions “cyclonic wave and inverter technology”, all I can say is it certainly seems to work and work well. My reheating test was lasagna which usually came out rock hard on top to get middle heated. No such problem/issue with this unit. Lasagna came out heated through and while the top was a tad hard around the edges it was great overall. Interior design and finish make cleaning a breeze, which you will have a chance to test if you don’t reduce your heating times. Fairly quiet when using 1-year warranty Cons; If off touchpad does not light if touched, must open the door. Most times not an issue but if you put something in to heat but decide to wait or heating is done - and the touchpad light has gone off - you will need to open the door to get the touchpad buttons to light and be active. Touchpad only has symbols – no verbiage to tell you what the buttons do (descriptions are given on bottom panel you can see when door is open). While this seems to be the trend on a lot of items these days it can make things confusing (definite learning curve). Anyone adverse to smartphones or electronics in general may find this daunting. Turntable is raised about an inch. I assume it is to help this units heating technology. Not a big issue but does cut down on the height of items you can put in the microwave. Overall, I highly recommend!

The Genius Prestige Plus is a modern take on the traditional microwave, featuring cyclonic wave and sensor cooking technology. The exterior and glass touch sensitive buttons give the microwave a refined appearance. The script font of “Genius Prestige Plus” isn’t my taste but others may like it. The microwave was larger than I anticipated, measuring 12” H X 22” W X 19.5” D. Inside the interior seems spacious for the 1.6 cubic foot size and features LED lighting. The control panel is a radical approach to how you interact with the microwave. Instead of directly entering your cook time, the microwave is geared more towards cooking functions. Initially I was put off by the approach, but overtime I became use to this method and don’t have any trouble quickly using the proper function. Fortunately the microwave also lets you cook in 30 second increments easily or has a swipe function to dial in cook times. Once you get use to the layout you can operate it as fast as a traditional number pad. Though I find using the functions useful, the genius function (smart cook/reheat) doesn’t work well when using a cover as the microwave can’t detect the temperature/humidity as accurately, causing the food to be overheated for my preference. This issue is specific to covered food that you don’t want to splatter, which I tend to cover everything out of habit. Using a paper towel instead or perhaps a better ventilated cover might work better. When using a paper towel or cooking uncovered, the smart reheat does a fantastic job at heating the food to the proper temperature taking out all the guess work. The cyclonic wave also seems to heat more evenly than a traditional microwave as well. If you have the space for it, the Panasonic GPP is definitely one to consider and despite my issue with the sensor reheat I feel it it the best microwave I have owned.

At first glance, this microwave oven looks like many others, an attractive steel cabinet, smoked glass and a touchpad on the right side of the door. But when you look closer, there are no numbers on the pad, instead they look like alien symbols from outer space. The whole idea behind this oven is that most of the time, you don’t really need to program your cooking by entering a time. When you think about it, it’s true. In the past, when I went to reheat leftovers, I usually entered a time, started the oven, then it would finish heating. I would open the door and usually find the food is not hot enough and I kept doing this until the finally my food is sufficiently hot and even then, there are almost always unevenly heated areas. With THIS Panasonic oven, you select the “Sensor Cook/Reheat” button, next select “Reheat” on the slider bar. That’s it. This oven features something called “Genius Sensor Technology” which then takes over and adjusts the power level and monitors the moisture in the food and sets the perfect time to get your meal hot. Also, the “Cyclonic Inverter” feature does actually seem to work. In the several times I’ve heated leftovers for this review, there were no cold spots anywhere. The food was heated evenly, all this automatically. There also are programs to automatically cook 19 different kinds of food, anything from oatmeal to fish filets. There’s a separate button on the touchpad to “Turbo” defrost meat, poultry and seafood automatically by just entering the weight. There are buttons on the touchpad to reheat coffee or milk, a “keep warm” button, and of course, a popcorn button and more. Also, the touchpad lights up brilliantly when you open the door, so you can use it in a darkened kitchen. After a few minutes the buttons turn off. This is good and bad. It’s bad because if you want to use the oven as just a timer, you must open and close the door even though you’re not cooking anything. It’s good because if you want to clean the outside of the oven, you can wipe the entire glass panel without the oven starting suddenly, which my old oven always did when I tried to clean it. If you really want to do things the old-fashioned way, you CAN enter your exact cooking time by using the slider bar and also adjust the oven’s power level manually. There’s also a “30 second” button which will allow you to set or add cooking time in 30 second intervals up to 5 minutes. You’ll probably be using this method when you first start using the oven before you’ll realize you get better results by letting the oven handle the timing and power tasks on its own. About the only negative I could see is that the heating compartment is lit by only one small LED. Looking through the glass while cooking your food it’s not lit as well as other microwave ovens. It’s not a big deal, just an observation. I was going to give this oven just 4 stars because you really DO need to sit down with the manual and read it slowly and carefully to understand the oven’s operation before you start using it, and even then you’ll probably want to keep the manual handy in the kitchen to refer to it. After I thought about it, since the oven really does SUCH a great job in heating much more evenly than any other I’ve used and does it automatically, I gave it it’s fifth star. It really is the best microwave oven I’ve ever owned. And also, if you have guests over, you’ll never have to worry about them using this microwave oven without your knowledge. They’ll never figure it out. :)