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Microwaves are the fucking worst. My workplace recently got and LG with hidden capacitative buttons, which don't work half the time, and require various combina

Microwaves are the fucking worst. My workplace recently got and LG with hidden capacitative buttons, which don't work half the time, and require various combinations of holding and tapping in unintuitive orders to set anything. A shame because its magnetron is one of those nice inverter-based ones, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to set the power. I would pay thousands for a high-powered inverter microwave with two physical dials: power (measured in WATTS, thank you, not percentage), and time.

userbinator 9y ago
You can get microwave ovens with knobs, although the power won't be in watts because they don't bother calibrating the power output that closely (and it varies slightly with line voltage and use.)
- colanderman 9y ago
  The only such ones I've found have been under 1000 W, which is too low for me. I appreciate the speed of 1200 W or more models, but those inevitably cheap out on the UI. Commercial models have a dial and high power, but I haven't found such a one where you can control the power, which is a must for oatmeal and such.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    http://www.samsung.com/uk/microwaves/microwave-commercial-cm1519/ http://www.samsung.com/uk/microwaves/microwave-commercial-cm... Large and not cheap, but it's 1500W and has 5 power levels.
    - colanderman 9y ago
      Thanks for the link. I seem to have cast my net too narrow, as Google turns up this: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/14351/commercial-microwaves.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/14351/commercial-microwaves... which has quite a few high-powered with dual dial controls (though it's not clear which are inverter-based). Some have instead two columns of buttons, one for power, one for time, which is a design I hadn't considered which does also seem easy to use.
perl4ever 9y ago
I've found Sharp to have the most intuitive UI, and would probably never buy any other brand. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a GE microwave built in to my apartment kitchen, but Sharp was what I was used to for many years. You enter a time, you hit "start" or "timer" and it counts down. Other brands seem to have UI designed by Martians - I could write a book on the ways they are screwed up.

userbinator 9y ago

You can get microwave ovens with knobs, although the power won't be in watts because they don't bother calibrating the power output that closely (and it varies slightly with line voltage and use.)

colanderman 9y ago
The only such ones I've found have been under 1000 W, which is too low for me. I appreciate the speed of 1200 W or more models, but those inevitably cheap out on the UI. Commercial models have a dial and high power, but I haven't found such a one where you can control the power, which is a must for oatmeal and such.
- userbinator 9y ago
  http://www.samsung.com/uk/microwaves/microwave-commercial-cm1519/ http://www.samsung.com/uk/microwaves/microwave-commercial-cm... Large and not cheap, but it's 1500W and has 5 power levels.
  - colanderman 9y ago
    Thanks for the link. I seem to have cast my net too narrow, as Google turns up this: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/14351/commercial-microwaves.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/14351/commercial-microwaves... which has quite a few high-powered with dual dial controls (though it's not clear which are inverter-based). Some have instead two columns of buttons, one for power, one for time, which is a design I hadn't considered which does also seem easy to use.

perl4ever 9y ago

I've found Sharp to have the most intuitive UI, and would probably never buy any other brand. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a GE microwave built in to my apartment kitchen, but Sharp was what I was used to for many years. You enter a time, you hit "start" or "timer" and it counts down. Other brands seem to have UI designed by Martians - I could write a book on the ways they are screwed up.