Panasonic 1100 Watt Genius Microwave NN-SD69LS Review

#sponsored #freeproduct Heats food fast but has a learning curve. Amazon Affiliate Product Link: https://geni.us/1tHMJBM As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned The microwave measures 21” wide, 11.5” tall, and 16” deep, though you should leave a few extra inches to the wall for proper ventilation. There is about a ½” gap from the bottom of the unit to the countertop. Inside you’ll find setup instructions, manual, and accessories. When you plug the unit in, you can set the weight units to metric or English by pressing in the dial, then press stop/reset to confirm the selection. To set the clock, press the cooking timer/clock button twice and the colon on the screen will start flashing. Use the dial to change the time, turning clockwise to increase the time and counter-clockwise to decrease it. Note that the clock is 12-hour format only and there’s no indicator for AM or PM. Also, the time only increments in one minute increments, no matter how fast you turn the dial, so setting the clock can be somewhat tedious. This is unfortunate as the time setting is lost when the unit is unplugged or the power goes out requiring you to set the time again. To lock the controls, press the dial three times in a row and a horizontal line will appear above the key icon. This prevents the use of any of the microwave functions until it is unlocked by pressing the stop button 3 times. You can modify the power level for the microwave by pressing the power level button repeatedly. When your desired power level is displayed, turn the dial to set the amount of cook time. The increments are 5 seconds up to 1 minute, then the increments change to 10 seconds from 1-5 minutes, 30 seconds from 5-10 minutes, 1 minutes up to 30 minutes, and thereafter 5 minute increments up to a max of 90 minutes or 30 minutes at max power level. The max power of this microwave is 1100 Watts and at the end of a program the microwave will beep 5 times. Pressing the quick 30 seconds button adds 30 seconds to any timed program. This microwave also has multi-stage cooking, up to 3 different stages including a delayed start, cooking for different periods of time at different power levels, keep warm, and resting time. When reheating food, you may want to use the one-touch sensor reheat feature which uses sensors to track the moisture and humidity of your food, rather than manually selecting power level and time. If it doesn’t produce the results you want, you can increase or decrease the cooking time when using the sensor by 10 or by 20%. You also won’t know exactly how long the mode will run for, which can make planning around the reheating time tricky, although it will start a countdown when there are only 30 seconds left. There’s a one-touch sensor cook and auto-defrost as well. The ""sensor cook"" numeric key is printed on a reference sticker on the inside of the door and also appears in the manual with additional instructions on how to best utilize each setting. Some defrosted foods may require you to turn or flip them part way through the defrost programming, and the microwave will pause and beep once to alert you when it’s time to do so. Overall, the microwave performs well, efficiently heating my food evenly throughout. It did take a little getting used to getting the timing right as this model is slightly more powerful than our last microwave. It’s also easy to clean the interior with a quick wipe down of a damp cloth, though I always use a microwave safe cover to reduce food spatter. Setting everything with a dial versus a numeric keypad is a bit cumbersome though, and backlighting for the controls would have been nice since you can’t read the labels in the dark. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned Amazon Affiliate Product Link: https://geni.us/1tHMJBM