Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I received this as a Christmas present from my BIL in 2013. This is an awesome device for cubical dwellers especially if you don't want to wait in line at the office microwave. Here is the most astonishing thing. I freeze lunches from dinner food in Zip-Lock 32oz divided lunch containers, frozen absolutely solid. In 2 hours the food is defrosted and completely reheated through. The containers do a good job of sealing and preventing liquid from getting from one container section to another during normal in-transit situations, the thing is the seals on these containers though adequate are not what you would call super tight so I didn't expect them to be much use against increasing air pressure as the box heated. I was initially worried about 2 things, the first was the Mini-Mac melting the plastic containers or maybe imparting a plastic taste to the food. The second concern was that steam build up in one section of the container would open the seals and cause everything to be a soggy mess when heated. Neither have every happened. Today I had stuffed pasta shells with marinara in the main section of the box and 2 pieces of crunchy bread in the smaller compartments. I dropped the still frozen solid container in the Mini-Mac at 10am. By 12:30 the food was hot and the bread crust was still crisp and crunchy. I think the fact that the food is heated slowly prevents a build up of moisture and pressure to the point of loosening the container seals. There is no excessive condensation build up inside the container or inside the Mini-Mac itself even after 2-3 hours. The other thing I was worried about was the smell of food heating at my desk. Again i think that the fact that the temp is increased slowly and not overly hot that the seal of the food containers isn't broken so smells don't escape out into the office. No one has even noticed that I have been warming food at my desk and I have been able to have better tasting and healthier meals each day. Update: after using this daily for several months I wanted to provide some additional feedback. The oven is still working great and we have taken to preparing partially cooked meals and freezing then in foil take out containers we got from GFS. For instance make manicotti up to the point where you would put it in the oven but freeze it instead (use pasteurized egg substitute instead of egg in the ricotta filling since I was not certain about the cooking temp of the oven and killing bacteria) . 2 hours in the little oven and the dish is completely cooked. That said I have 2 cons. The cord is far to short, it would work fine for sitting on a counter but at a desk with outlets or powers trips at floor level I had to bring in a short extension cord. Second a power switch preferably lit would be nice so it doesn't have to continually be plugged in or out from the outlet or in my case having an unsightly extension cord plug always laying on the corner of my desk. I leave the oven at my desk and bring my lunch in a pac-it frozen lunch bag. That way I drop the container to heat into the mini-mac and leave other things to stay cold in my pac-it until lunch. I no longer need the office fridge or microwave.