Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Frankly, all the 5 star ratings for this oven are very perplexing. Many of them appear to be one-review shills, and my honest suggestion to anyone reading the reviews on the Nuwave is to take a quick look at the "See All My Reviews" button. If the reviewer has only one or a couple of reviews total, and they are all written about the same time, treat that review with great skepticism. Still, there are a number of high star reviews that seem to be from legitimate reviewers here, and this greatly mystifies me because they reflect experiences that are the opposite of my own. By way of supporting my personal experience, I would suggest anyone looking at this oven do a web search for Nuwave complaints. What you will find is a vast number of people not associated with Amazon's review system who report experiences like my own. I purchased the Nuwave Pro with the extension kit. The claims, as stated on this Amazon page were extremely enticing, namely, "Cook a 10lb. frozen solid turkey in 2 1/2 hours", and "Cooks up to 50% faster than a conventional oven", and "Applies heat directly to the food enhancing browning roasting and flavor." All of these sounded great to me. And these were just the tip of the iceberg. The manufacturer makes even more incredible claims, but since this is an Amazon review I'll stick to just those things stated on Amazon's sales page. So, I proudly gave this to my wife for Christmas. We were eager to put it through its paces. To say the oven was an abysmal failure is like saying the Titanic fell prey to a minor incident. This oven is a performance disaster! We started off with what we thought would be a simple test; a couple of skinless, boneless chicken breasts. These were not frozen, but were fresh. We figured, "Hey, if this puppy will cook a 10lbs., frozen solid turkey in 2.5 hours, it ought to crank out a couple of fresh, unfrozen chicken breasts in nothing flat, right?" Wrong! We popped them in, followed the instructions for the oven, turned the Nuwave on, then checked it when the instructions said it had cooked long enough. Hmmmmmm... Still raw. So we put it in for some additional time and we watched and waited. And we waited, and waited, and waited. The breasts were obviously not cooking. In the end they cooked for nearly an hour and were still raw inside, with the outside showing only a very minimal change. Curious, we inserted a meat thermometer into them and found the temperature of the meat so low that it would not even register on the thermometer. Disappointed, and fearing we had a defective oven on our hands, we contacted the manufacturer directly via email to quiz them about the oven. They asked the obvious questions, like, whether or not the heating element was red during cooking, and some rather far-fetched ones, like did the outlet we plugged the oven into carry standard house current, etc. They couldn't figure out why it had taken so long, and advised we give it another try. So next, we tried a small pork loin roast, again, fresh, not frozen. The Nuwave recipe guide said to cook this roast on high for 1 hour. We cooked it for an hour, and the roast was still a piece of raw meat. So we cooked it for another hour. Then another hour. After 3 hours on high, the outside of the roast had a very, very slight browning in evidence. But below that first millimeter the meat was entirely raw and, as with the chicken breast, we could not get the meat thermometer to even register a temperature. In the interest of being absolutely fair, we cut some small, red potatoes in half and tried just roasting them. After 2 hours on high, the potatoes were cooked about halfway through. So the oven was working in that the potatoes were at least partially cooked, but 2 hours to cook small potatoes that are cut into halves is ridiculous. I could rub them between my hands and friction-cook them faster than that. Back to the manufacturer we went. The oven was working, they said, because the element was red and we could hear the convection working. And the potatoes were partially cooked, and the outside of the pork roast did darken slightly. So the problem must be the users, my wife and myself. That was their assessment. They guessed maybe we should try a different recipe for the roast. We must be using a bad recipe. Come again!? Did the manufacturer really just tell us that their oven might cook faster or slower depending on whether or not we put Rosemary on a roast or Thyme? We wrote them a scathing response, pointing out how idiotic their reply had been. Their next message said that perhaps this was simply a case where my wife and I liked our meat more well done than most people. The Nuwave, they told us, was for "healthy cooking", which meant that yes, it would cook a small, frozen chicken in under 15 minutes, but the degree to which it cooked the meat was to the point of being "healthy", which might not meet our personal tastes. So, they concluded, we should add to the cooking times to get the meat done according to how we liked it done. According to the manufacturer, the Nuwave will cook up to 50% faster than a conventional oven, but only if you like your meat raw and frozen. That, they believe, is what constitutes "healthy cooking". If you prefer your food cooked, then you need to leave it in the oven for as long as it takes to get it the way you like it. Basically, your crock pot will get your meal cooked much, much faster. What is interesting is if you go online and search for complaints, there are many reports similar to our own experience. But if you go to the manufacturer's site and look at their link for complaints about the oven, they say they've received, "... very few Nuwave Oven complaints about the actual oven." They state that the vast majority of the complaints they receive have to do with shipping issues, so they recommend solving these by purchasing the oven through a reputable site like Amazon. But then they add, "Additional complaints were made about returning the Nuwave oven." Really? If you have very few complaints about the oven itself, then why do you have so many complaints from people trying to return the oven? Why are so many trying to return it if so few have any complaint about it? You do the math. Still, here on Amazon there appear to be a significant number of happy reviewers who are legitimate reviewers and not shills for the manufacturer. So to sum this all up, taking those reviewers into account; my own experience into account; other, online, non-Amazon reviews into account, as well as the ridiculous responses to us by the manufacturer indicating that our oven is working normally, and the issue is nothing more than taste in "doneness" preferences, I would safely offer the following: There are enough good reviews to suggest that at least some of the time, the oven you receive will work to your satisfaction. You have maybe a 50/50 chance of getting a working oven. Pray you do, because if you're like me, the manufacturer will be of no help. The manufacturer also does not paint an accurate picture about the number of dissatisfied customers they have. My oven will be returned (less s/h, of course!) and I will not give this manufacturer another dime of my money. My own experience has satisfied me that, 1. The Nuwave product is highly questionable. Order one, and it's a crap-shoot as to what you will get. And, 2. The manufacturer is aware of the problems but misrepresents the degree of the problem in the extreme. Even their own website betrays this fact, as the contradictory quotations above suggest. Is this really a company you want to do business with, and a product you want to take a chance on?