Saves us money on butter!

This microwave came to our home to replace the most basic, bare-bones (from my husband's bachelor days) microwave you can imagine--your options were cook or defrost, and that was about it. The timer was a dial that went in one minute increments, so when I went to soften butter in it, planning to stop it after a few seconds, any distraction that arose could assure us of a butter puddle. The time for a replacement had come.

Our initial interest in Sharp was due to the high customer ratings we found on the brand as well as high marks in a Consumer Reports buying guide. We ended up purchasing this MW at Sears and have been quite happy with it. It has a number of features we like (definitely an improvement over two settings!) including adjustable power levels, a touch keypad, a timer and clock, and a minute plus key (that you can use in the middle of cooking). It also has a popcorn setting that, in my experience, really is accurate. The first time I used it, I thought it stopped too soon and set it to cook just a bit longer...you guessed it...burned popcorn.

The MW has three different heating settings (cook, defrost, and reheat), each of which gives the user a choice of several different foods and amount of those foods. For example, under "defrost" you can choose ground beef, steak/chops, boneless poultry, or bone-in poultry, then you set how many pounds of that food you want to defrost. In some cases, the microwave will cut off during the cycle so you can check on the food.

This MW is nice-looking (we have the black model), and though the touch pad and door edge collect plenty of fingerprints (of course), I haven't had difficulty cleaning them. Speaking of the touchpad, it also has a child lock feature that keeps the unit from running unless a certain sequence of buttons is pressed.

With the turntable and the various settings for heating, the MW does a great job of heating evenly and well (assuming no operator error in setting it). Something else that may help in this is that we use a plastic cover with steam-release holes over almost everything that we microwave--it seems to help prevent food from drying out.

I have found only a couple of negatives about this microwave as so far it's done a great job for us. It would be nice if the interior were just slightly larger so that a full-size casserole dish would fit; as it is, a dinner plate or regular-size round casserole dish fits easily. Also, the door latches are made of plastic and feel flimsy to me.

All in all, I think it's a great microwave, especially for the price. Not to mention, it's much easier to butter your bread the usual way rather than trying to scoop up liquid butter with a spatula.