10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
excellent value for the price
Date of Review: Mar 29, 2006
The Bottom Line: Best performance for the money spent
I have owned this model for nearly five years. I bought it only a few weeks after this model was introduced. We had a gas line and 120V plug behind the old range, and did not want to pay thousands to bring in 240V needed by most electric convection ranges at the time. In 2001, only four major companies offered gas convection ranges that used 120V: Kitchen Aid, GE, Jenn Air, and Frigidaire. Given that the $700 price for the Frigidaire was half of what the other companies charged, the choice was not difficult.
This range is amazing. Everything baked it comes out great. While the manual convection system may shave 10-12 minutes/hour off the cooking time, claims of "30% faster" are probably not realistic. The saved time is secondary, however, to how amazingly even this oven cooks. We've made as many as six pies at once and all of them come out perfectly cooked: no underdone or overdone areas. Since most people who buy a 30" range will have only one oven in the kitchen, it is that much more important that everything cook evenly if the oven is heavily used with several dishes at once.
Frigidaire today offers a Speed Bake range with five burners and grates that go all the way across the cooking surface. I would pay extra today for this feature, but it was not offered in 2001. The high power 12K BTU burner does a nice job, but today the company offers higher (14K BTU) burners. Another bonus is that the porcelain coated grates are dishwasher safe, making them easier to keep clean. Cast iron finish grates cannot go in the dishwasher and are harder to keep looking nice and new.
If you are looking mainly for even cooking, rather than saving 30% off your cooking time, this range is a better value than the higher priced Frigidaire models with the third convection heating element.
