9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
This is the best Microwave I've ever owned. Period.
Date of Review: Nov 18, 2004
The Bottom Line: Powerful 1200 watt full sized microwave with excellent sensor cooking features.
I've been extremely happy with my Sharp R-530ES Microwave. It is powerful (1200 watts) and packed with features that actually work as advertised. Some of the features that I like and/or use are as follows:
Powerful: With this 1200 watt microwave you can boil water for tea in about a minute. I previously had a 700 watt microwave and the difference in power is noticeable.
Interior: It has a large 2 cubic foot interior with a large 16 inch glass turntable. And an interior light that comes on when the door is open. It is about as easy to clean as any other microwave, the turntable comes out.
Exterior: It's built well and looks good. It has a stainless steel exterior and real glass window on its door. The 2-color display can show 16 digits or letters on 2 lines. The control pad is laid out well and is fairly easy to use once you get used to it. The only thing that makes it a little confusing at first is that there are so many functions that it can be a little overwhelming. For instance there are 33 automatic cook and defrost settings and each one has sub-settings for things such as cups of water, weight of meat, etc. Which brings us to...
Automatic Functions/Sensor cooking/defrosting: The auto functions and sensor cooking works excellent. It has a button marked "popcorn" and you simply put a bag of popcorn in the microwave (any size bag) and hit the "Popcorn" button then hit "Start". The microwave will start and the display will just say "Popcorn". After a while the buzzer will go off and the popcorn is done and done perfectly every time. If you want to re-heat a plate of food you just hit the "Sensor Reheat" button then "Start". And just like with popcorn it senses when the food is done. This works better than I expected it to. If you put in something that heats quickly like a slice of pizza it will run for a short amount of time, if you put in a whole plate of food with potatoes on it, it will run until the potatoes are heated all the way through. There are also auto sensor functions to cook frozen vegetables, fresh vegetables (choose hard or soft), defrosting meats (large sub-menu to choose type, cut, and weight of meat), heat water for coffee/tea/soup, and a bunch of others that I don't use often.
In addition this unit can be put on a counter top or it can be built-in with the optional Built-in kit. I have it built-in and not only does it look better, but it frees up all that counter space.
