****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Overall I'm pleased with this microwave oven. It's a no-frills, simple design I learned about when they got one for the break room at work. It's roomy enough for standard needs... cup of coffee, pot of soup, popcorn, dinner plate, etc. Controls are simply one dial with lighted numerals to stand for minutes or seconds if it's under 1 minute. The lights "count down" as it's cooking, so you know how long is left. This is also a great method to figure out what time is best and choose that precise time again later. Sure, you can do that with a digital readout, but with this oven it's just a quick spin of the dial and done. Takes less than a second. The dial offers very little resistance. It spins not freely enough to keep going when you let go, but very easily so dialing in the time is effortless. It does not move as it counts down, so this is an electronic process and not mechanical (to my knowledge). It's 1000 watts, so it has plenty of cooking power.I had to remove some stars, unfortunately, because 1 year 7 months after purchasing this the door handle broke. I like the design of the door handle, but it has some vulnerable parts inside. The door latches closed and the microwave will not turn on unless the door is closed. This is a safety feature. Also if you close the door and don't activate the microwave for a while, it times out and will not power on unless you open and close the door again. Nice safety feature so you don't accidentally cook your food twice if you're absent-minded. The handle latches closed and to open it you squeeze the door handle. It's not exactly intuitive, so new users may just grab and pull until they learn they have to squeeze to release the latch. We had some house guests and when they opened the microwave door, a part inside broke, so the door would no longer latch closed, and consequently the microwave would not power on. I took it apart to diagnose the problem (not recommended). It was a complex operation just to get the door apart. **Skip to the end if you're not interested in a technical description** See the attached pictures. I found that the door latch mechanism involves a spring holding tension on the part that moves in your hand, and also on plastic door latches inside which rock on a pivot. This pivot is built onto the parts as a small plastic nub about 4mm diameter and about 6mm long, which fits into a metal hole as a fulcrum for the mechanism. There are two parts like this (upper and lower) and the nub sheared off of the upper part. The part costs about $9 and it's available online, but I didn't want to wait that long, and the unit was still under warranty. Unfortunately, the nearest authorized service location is about 20 miles away, and they couldn't even look at the microwave for several days. My original request to customer service was to just send me the part, as I was pretty confident I could put it in myself. They completely ignored this request and sent back their boilerplate reply 1) warranty applies 2) call this number. I wound up fixing the part myself by drilling through where the nub was with my rotary tool, cutting down a small machine screw to length with a hack saw, and gluing it in. Works perfectly, although I've slightly decreased the structural integrity of the plastic latch head by drilling through it. We'll see how long it lasts or if the other one fails too. If you're going to do this operation bear in mind that it's not easy to just drill through the plastic part with a drill, as the drill bit keeps jumping around on the slick plastic. A rotary tool works much better, but be careful about melting the plastic too. Do it in short sessions. Also, it is necessary to cut down the machine screw. It has to fit into a narrow area, so the length of the nub does matter. Finally, I did try just gluing the plastic nub back on with super glue, but it immediately broke off again as soon as I reapplied the spring tension. **End of technical discussion** I recommend taking it easy on the door handle, and teaching guests how to open the microwave.
