Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

2018-06-13-122924 In 1987 I purchased my 1st microwave for $350. It was a KENMORE 7218783580 MICROWAVE and it performed flawlessly from 1987 to last week with no issues. No burned out bulbs or anything . . . until last week. A plastic part in the door gave out and made the locking mechanism stop working. The part required to repair the lock is not available and patching up the existing lock did not seem prudent so the hunt for a new microwave was on. After looking at MICROWAVES and REVIEWS on AMAZON.COM (and other sites) I decided upon the PANASONIC NN-SN966S as the replacement for my tried and true KENMORE. I ordered the PANASONIC MICROWAVE, it arrived on TUE-05-JUN, and was put into service TUE PM. PROS: ** This is a very nice looking unit ** It fits well in the space allocated for a microwave in my kitchen ** It cooks food well. CONS: ** I dislike having to press a button on the microwave to unlock the door and then open the door as two separate actions. ** The stainless steel portions of the face (including the door button and the door handle) show finger and palm prints easily. ** The keypad is not a touch pad or a set of mechanical switches, it is a pad of buttons that seem similar to the ones used on some cell phones where there are contacts are under layers of plastic and pressing the contacts together activates the switch. My luck with switches like this has not been good in the past. ** Accessing the POWER LEVEL FUNCTION was very inefficient. On my old microwave if you wanted to cook something for 2 minutes at 1/2 power you pressed TIME + 2 + 0 + 0 + POWER + 5 + START. On this new PANASONIC microwave if you want to do the same thing you have to press POWER (100%) + POWER (90%) + POWER (80%) + POWER (70%) + POWER (60%) + POWER (50%) + TIME + 2 + 0 + 0 + START Old = 7 buttons vs New = 11 buttons. Old wins. If you want power 2, Old = 7 buttons, New = 12 buttons. This seemed to mean the POWER BUTTON was going to get a lot of use and would probably have issues before the less used buttons on the control panel. ** Steam / Condensation appeared inside the door and the inside the time display (please see attached photos, red outlined areas = condensation behind plastic panel) ** The interior light was a small LED that did not do an adequate job of illuminating the inside so the cooking process could be monitored through the door (and/or the door tint was to dark). ** There are no handles or hand holes on the cabinet to use when lifting this unit. ** There seems to be no way to disable the TURNTABLE so if an item cannot rotate freely within the oven, it will hit the walls or slide around on the turntable. This must be the difference between the volume of the interior (2.2 cu ft) and the usable space (1.4 cu ft). SUMMARY: The PANASONIC NN-SN966S is a very nice microwave but (after a bit more checking) I have replaced it with a Kenmore Elite 79399 2.2 cu. ft. Countertop Microwave Oven w/ Inverter - Black (last picture below). The KENMORE is not as highly rated as the PANASONIC and it is a bit more expensive but I believe that it suits my needs better. I will be doing a review on the KENMORE 79399 shortly.