Panasonic - NN-SV79MS 1.4 Cu. Ft. Countertop Microwave Oven with Inverter Technology and Alexa compatibility - Stainless Steel

Perfect size with good power and super quiet! Love it!

I love this Panasonic 1.4 cu. ft. countertop microwave. Before I get into the actual review of the microwave, I have to give 2 thumbs up to their customer service department. I had a slight issue with this microwave, but they were extremely helpful in helping me resolve my issue. Out of the box, you will notice how light this microwave is. This is important since it is a countertop and most likely you will move it when you reconfigure your counter space. Second, I love the design of this microwave. It looks very high tech and just has a very slick design to it with the stainless steel. Heating and cooking: It does a marvelous job at both. I thought I would miss not having numbers on the pad, but the way this microwave is designed, heating and cooking foods just got much easier. The Quick 30 second button makes choosing a time limit very easy. You can choose the power and time with the microwave button along with the main knob. We do alot of popcorn bags in my house, so the Popcorn button was a must when choosing a new microwave. This microwave produces very will popped bags. The main reason why I got this Panasonic is the inverter technology. This technology allows your food to be evenly heated throughout. No more cold spots! Alexa feature: This Panasonic countertop microwave comes with over 100 Alexa commands. This feature is very easy to set up. You will just need the Alexa app on your phone. It took me approximately 2 minutes to get this feature set up and it is well worth it. My wife and I are constantly shuttling our kids to activities and those really busy days it is so nice to program the microwave with the help of Alexa. I can tell it to start warming up my food at a certain time and length. When I walk in the door, our food is ready to be eaten. It has been a true time saver! Overall, I am highly satisfied with this Panasonic microwave. It looks nice, does a great job of heating my food and it has great tech features. If you are in the market for a new microwave, I highly recommend this Panasonic.

TLDR; Inverter technology allows the microwave to cook at a steady, constant power level. When using any of the automated modes (auto cook, auto defrost, reheat), its built-in sensor technology senses steam and moisture and will make adjustments to time and power level. Alexa integration surprisingly makes using this microwave a lot easier than pushing buttons on the microwave. You still can be old skool and specify a cook time and power level, if you choose. I’ve always been a fan of inverter microwaves and every time I encounter one that is not (at work, at a friends house, etc), I get a bit triggered because I know I’m going to either have unevenly heated or over-nuked food somehow. For those not familiar with inverter microwaves, the best example I can think of right now is your oven at home. When you cook anything in your oven, you set a specific temperature, say 350 degrees, and you confidently put your food in to bake. This is the behavior of an inverter microwave when power levels are set. Now imagine if you could only set your oven to the max setting (500 degrees maybe?) and had to sit there and turn the oven on and off to get as close to a 350 degree temp as possible. This is your conventional microwave when power levels are set. And if you haven’t noticed already, your conventional microwave will cycle on and off to achieve the set power level. As you can imagine, steady, constant heat is what we always strive for when cooking anything, whether you’re on a stovetop, grilling in the backyard, baking in the oven or even using the sous vide. Panasonic has been innovating and improving on inverter technology for the last 30 years. So the microwave, yeah? The NV-SV79MS Inverter Microwave has been the best microwave I have ever used to date, mainly because of its automation from both a sensor cooking perspective as well as a smart home perspective. First, in combination with its inverter technology, sensor cooking allows the unit to decide how to adjust time and power levels to achieve that perfectly heated, cooked food. For instance, if you’ve ever cooked oatmeal in the microwave, you’ve probably had lava overflows or sat in front of the microwave to make sure it doesn’t overflow. With the NV-SV79MS, you simply turn the main knob to the Oatmeal preset, press start and walk away. In all my testing thus far, I have not been able to get my typical oatmeal bowl to overflow. What’s even sweeter is now I can cook two bowls together and I'll still come out with perfect oatmeal bowls every time. Along with the oatmeal preset, there are a total of 20 preset options from coffee to frozen entrée to melting butter. Panasonic doesn’t want you to go traditional with time-based usage and rather have you trust them to use their presets. Along with the presets is the defroster mode called Turbo Defrost. Using the same techniques, it utilizes the inverter technology and sensor cooking to make sure your defrost is perfect. The only thing you need to specify is the weight so that it has a baseline to start from. Most important thing to remember is that the microwave is not cycling on and off; it’s providing constant level power to ensure an even defrost. The NV-SV79MS can still be used like a traditional microwave in that you can set a specific time and power level. It even has a “Quick 30” seconds if you’re just looking for a quick nuke, and a few pushes of this button will add an additional 30 seconds of time. For us traditional users, we know this is our go-to method of using a microwave and it’s still on the unit if you choose to use it. Last thing I want to touch on is Alexa integration and how surprised I was with it. The best way I can describe its use is like having a person at your home who knows how to use the microwave, and you telling this person what you want to heat. Alexa will set up the microwave for your specific request instead of you having to press the buttons on the unit. I feel that Turbo Defrosting will be the best use of Alexa, as you can specify weight and product (3 lbs of ground beef, for example). So you would say, “Alexa, defrost 3 pounds of ground beef” and it’s off to the races. In the same fashion, you can also tell Alexa to reheat a cup of coffee, an ounce or more of dessert, or pizza with no quantity specification. There is a whole page and a half of commands found in the manual. But let’s not forget that we can even tell Alexa to microwave for X minutes and Y seconds at power level 5, if you need to do that. Alexa setup was very easy and can be done in the Alexa app on your phone as it will automatically detect the presence of the NV-SV79MS. I keep an Echo Dot in the kitchen to utilize the Alexa commands with ease.

Next gen Microwave that is SMART(Alexa), Genius (sensor that automatically adjusts power and cooking timing) has finally arrived from Panasonic. Let’s see how this microwave differs from the traditional microwave out the box and its performance. What’s in the box: Microwave, Glass turntable, Roller ring, user manual Setup: Super easy setup. Microwave is wrapped in plastic and packaged well. Just remove the sticky tape and connect the power cord, insert the roller ring, and glass turntable. To connect with Alexa, just open the Alexa app on the phone, click add new device, search microwave, and select the Panasonic microwave from the options. When prompted to scan the barcode that is printed on the microwave behind the door, and it just adds the microwave to account and is ready for voice prompts. This microwave has more than 100 voice commands to make cooking or reheating easier. Just say Alexa start microwave for 1 minute or stop microwave for easy access. It also has easy to operate dial and buttons like turbo defrost, delay start and timer, Quick 30, popcorn, stop/reset, 20 preset menu items. This microwave has a invertor technology and sensor that detects the steam from the food as it cooks and adjusts power and time settings accordingly to ensure that food is heated consistently and evenly from edges to center. Overall, great powerful 1200 watts 1.4 cu ft microwave simple to use, very fast, cooks’ food consistently, SMART voice activated, spacious interior, sleek stainless exterior that will not disappoint anyone who is looking to add this to their kitchen countertop.

The Panasonic - NN-SV79MS 1.4 Cu. Ft. counter top microwave oven is both aesthetically pleasing and a fabulous cooking machine with so many bells and whistles. Aesthetically, it is 100% stainless steel and sort of low profile to easily fit either on the counter top, with plenty of space to fit under upper cabinets, or fit on a metal shelf, as I have done, in my office file room. Even though this counter top only microwave easily fits under the upper cabinet, it is nice and tall and wide enough on the inside to easily fit a good amount of food with the 1.4 cubic foot measurement. Most kitchens have built-in microwaves these days, so if that is your application this is not the model for you. However, if you need a counter top version than this is your machine-just make sure that you will be placing it on a solid, stable surface with a minimum of 3 inches from any wall and 12 inches above so that the microwave gets adequate ventilation while in use, see attached pictures of all microwave sides, including the right sides with air vents. There is actually a fully functional owner's manual that comes with this product, which I can really appreciate, versus the current day versions mostly found, but harder to access on the manufacturer's website. So, one of the best features is that this Panasonic microwave is an Alexa device and is easily connected to my Alexa app. In fact, there is a separate Alexa command cheat sheet that also comes with the unit and I have taped it to the shelf that this unit sits on. I can simply talk into my smartphone's Alexa app or into the Alexa device itself it is located in the microwave's vicinity. The reason that the actual Alexa device must be near the microwave is that it needs to know that the microwave's door was recently opened and closed with the user putting in the food that needs to be cooked Again, the original set up of Alexa on the microwave was easy enough to set up to my WiFi network. Once the blinking You know that the WiFi is fully connected and ready to go once the blue WiFi icon stops blinking and is steady. This feature is way cool, as well as, all the auto-program cooking presets programmed in and the sensors that determine the amount of time and heat level to heat up leftovers, etc. and how to heat based on the what is being warmed up and you can also do this by weight by literally telling Alexa you are heating x food at y weight. The sensor for the auto-cook can do anything that you need it to do- there are 20 operations for foods to do things such as melt/soften, auto reheat, sensor cook and thank goodness the owner's manual literally lines out, step by step, how to do all of these functions. I recommend the purchase of this unit because the cost is not bad for all the fabulous bells and whistles programmed in even though there will be a period of learning on how to use this fully functional machine. However, you can literally command Alexa to cook this food for that amount of time with this amount of weight. Have fun.