GE Makes A Great Microwave! I Wonder What Happened Here?

Microwaves have become so reasonably priced that there is no reason for any home to be without one. I remember when I was in junior high school and we visited the electric company and they displayed this “micro thing” and told us that someday we would be able to afford one. At that time they were about $3000. Well, many years have passed since that experience, and I have had my share of microwaves.

Currently we are living in an apartment, and the tiny microwave in my kitchen by General Electric is the cheapest appliance that I have ever experienced. It is living proof that you do not want to purchase the least expensive one on the market. I did not but this, but it would easily be under $75.

It is actually installed under a cabinet, and since my nice GE was sold with our house, I was happy to have one. However, this is not all it is cracked up to be. It is adequate with it’s .7 cubic feet capacity, however I do not like the turntable which tends to limit the size even more of what can be put in it.

I question the wattage at 700 watts. It may just not be working well, but I find that it takes about double the time to heat an item, as it would have in my previous one, which had about the same power.

Now everything is not bad about this appliance. It had a touch keypad with a quick cook button programmed into the timer. If you want to cook from one minute to six minutes, just push the button corresponding for the time you want, and it is a fast to have to only push one button.

There is the defrost feature that a cook cannot live without. I do find that it takes twice as much time to defrost an item as my other GE microwave. I have used the popcorn feature and didn’t like the results, so now I just use a timed cook and get much better results and fewer unpopped kernels.

Turntables have never appealed to me, and this one tends to want to come out as it just has some small grooves for the glass tray to fit into. The tray lies on top of a round plastic gadget, and frankly it is easy to have the glass turntable fly out. I actually had that happen to me yesterday and yes it broke into many pieces.

When I was checking the model number to write about the appliance, I was very disappointed that is was made in Malaysia. No doubt it is getting harder to find “Made in the USA” anymore, but there is a difference in quality.

Oh, for those of you that want to know if it is easy to clean, it gets five stars in that area.

My overall rating of this microwave would be minimal at best. I am glad it is in the apartment so we did not have to purchase one. However, if you are looking for a smaller size microwave, this one I would pass on. Spend a little more, and get one that works like most General Electrics do.