Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This rice cooker says goodbye to the old way of cooking rice (resistive heating element) and employs the newest revolution in rice cooking: pressure inductive heating! Overall, this rice cooker is indeed the best available on US market, but Zojirushi holds back many of their even better models to the domestic Japanese market. What is Pressure IH? Briefly, without getting too much into the details of the technology, Pressure IH uses inductive magnetic coils in the walls of the cooker that induce eddy currents in the rice pot and cook your rice (same as an inductive coil stove). Pressure allows for higher temperatures to be used, beyond the normal boiling point to drive moisture in to rice. Pressure is felt uniformly everywhere within the pot and the rice cooks faster. As a result, pressure IH creates a much more even cooking process. With traditional cookers, there is one resistive heating element on the bottom of the pot. As a result of a single source of heat, the rice is subject to differences in both moisture and heat. The bottom may end up burnt/mushy, the middle just right and the top slightly dry and undercooked. In pressure IH, with multiple inductive rings surrounding the pot, there is far greater evenness in cooking and with that control comes better taste and texture! Once you try pressure IH, there really is no going back. If you look at the Japanese market, it is now hard to find a traditional rice cooker that still remains popular in the US. Japan versus US market I've been spoiled by having lived in Japan and seeing the selection of rice cookers available there and the results. I will say that this is THE BEST rice cooker available in the US market currently. It is one of the few Pressure and IH(inductive heating) systems (compare with plain IH or conventional resistive heating element) which is a major plus. Hands down Pressure IH is the way to go with cooking rice and the quality and durability of this rice cooker is second to none. However, I'm disappointed in the cooking pot that Zojirushi ships with the NP-NVC10 for the price. In Japan, a similarly priced cooker would have a much thicker pot (see my review on the Zojirushi NP-BS10-WB Pressure IH model, this also has a discussion on the various forms of rice cookers which I briefly outlined above Zojirushi NP-BS10-WB IH 5-cup Pressure Rice Cooker and Warmer | AC100V 50/60Hz (Japan Model)). Pot quality is the mark of a top of the line cooker, and it's construction makes a significant difference in the cooking of rice. A thicker pot improves the evenness of heat transfer, reduces deformation under pressure, and has increased thermal mass which allows rice to stay warm longer in the cooker. That said, you won't be disappointed in the results of this rice cooker. You are as I said, getting the best you can get in the US without the hassle of importing your own and dealing with transformer/voltage issues. 4 Stars on Global Standard (sorry to be a rice snob!) 5 Stars on US Standard