Feature Attractions: Best Values in Microwave Ovens

Whirlpool

If the race to prepare your meals is more like a chaotic scramble than an easy task, there’s no question that having a microwave oven (or microwave) helps a lot. But just when you thought that microwaves couldn’t zap foods any faster, one manufacturer claims that its latest product takes speed-cooking to a new level.

It sounds unbelievable that any microwave could cook meals four times faster than a traditional oven does and 75 percent faster than most other combination microwaves, which are microwaves that also use convection cooking technology. But that’s precisely what Half Time Oven claims with its latest models.

You also will find new microwaves from other manufacturers that have new combinations of features, as well as models that have new buttons that are designed to help you to cook healthful meals or to save a few dollars each year in electricity costs.

We wish that we could tell you that sweeping innovations are revolutionizing the products that are from most manufacturers. But, in general, what’s new in microwaves today amounts only to microbenefits for consumers.

SPEED LIMITS. Half Time Oven’s UltraSpeed Oven 4X speeds up the company’s approach to convection cooking. Whereas other combination microwaves cycle back and forth between convection and standard microwave modes during cooking, 4X models (and original 2X models) run both modes simultaneously. (Convection technology bakes and browns foods.)

4X models, which use a whopping 1,900 watts of cooking power, generate up to 80 percent more power than a traditional microwave does. Consequently, they cook food dramatically faster than all other microwaves do, says Mike McDavitt, who is the founder of Half Time Oven. McDavitt claims that 4X’s High Speed mode cooks food 50 percent to 75 percent faster than do other manufacturers’ combination microwaves, twice as fast as 2X models and four times faster than a gas oven or an electric oven.

For instance, if a roast takes 2 hours to cook in a traditional oven and about 1 hour in a combination microwave, it would take just 30 minutes in a 4X model. Or if you bake an apple pie, it would take 60 minutes in traditional ovens, 42 minutes in most combination microwaves and 15 minutes in 4X models.

Half Time Oven models also don’t use sensor-cooking technology to help the appliance to determine the proper cooking time and temperature, which is what most other combination microwaves do. Instead, you simply set the time and temperature like you would for a traditional gas or electric oven—say, 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour—and the combination microwave uses a mathematical formula to convert that information to the appropriate microwave-cooking time.

The big benefit here, McDavitt says, is that this programming function allows consumers to follow the recipes that they already have, as opposed to making the special programming conversions that typically are needed for conventional combination microwaves. Of course, it’s worth noting that many combination microwaves that other manufacturers make have their own programming shortcuts, such as “easy convect” buttons that automatically deliver times and temperatures for convection cooking recipes.

Although no independent expert whom we interviewed questioned the speed-cooking capabilities of Half Time Oven microwaves, we don’t expect other manufacturers to try to replicate this approach. As impressive as the cooking times of 4X models might be, you still face plenty of obstacles if you determine that a 4X is worth purchasing.

For starters, 4X models have limited availability, and that isn’t expected to change anytime soon. At press time, countertop ($299), built-in ($549) and over-the-range ($599) models of the 4X were available for preorder at halftimeovens.com, and the countertop version was available at walmart.com. All 2X models are available only at the company website or walmart.com. Because you can’t buy any of these models off the shelf in a brick-and-mortar store, you’ll have to pay about $20 to have one shipped, or you’ll have to wait 5–7 days to pick it up free at a Walmart store.