Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Alright after using this product for a while theres some definate huge downsides to it. I've cooked a number of things on this using both cast iron and steel pans. I'll start with the upsides first: 1. Heats up the pan very fast. If you're trying to boil something, make soup, or cook something in a sauce pan, its very quick, much quicker than a normal electric burner, which is nice. Now the downsides: 1. It has very poor temperature regulation. Theres a method of dialing in 250, 280, 220 degrees up to 460 or 490 I believe, however all this does is turn it on full blast for a few seconds, then leave it off for a few seconds. This is not nearly desirable as a steady heat since it not really as predictable. When its heating up the pan initially it goes full blast till it gets somewhat near the target temperature. During this time, it can leave whatever you're cooking horribly charred as it massively overshoots the target temperature while heating up, which is a problem if you throw the food in too early. This isn't very intuitive or desirable. I threw a few bacon slices, turned it on, and turned my back for a minute and they were completely blackened. 2. The central heating element is pretty small, mainly heating the center of the pan. Iron and steel don't really distribute heat as well as copper/aluminum (which you can't use with this), so the heat distribution isn't as nice as a gas or some other burners. 3. It shuts off when it gets a bit hot. This is really the most annoying part. You can't sear a steak in a cast iron pan well because its shuts off before it can get really got. Theres a "target temperature" more where you set the desired temperature, then a constant power mode where you supply a dialable power level between 1 and 9. Anything over a 3 or 4 and it shuts off after 5 minutes and doesn't turn back off for a bit. This is a massive failure as far as I'm concerned. 4. The controls are flush with the surface, and not heat proof. I melted the lamination off when the pan slid over, oops, would be nicer if they were heatproof.