Panasonic NN-SD681S Countertop/Built-in Microwave with Inverter Technology, 1.2 Cu. Ft., 1200W Stainless

We've owned this microwave for 2 weeks now. My wife is sort of technophobic, still she loves this microwave. I do too. In fact, since we own 2 microwaves and our other one is not working well, I just bought a second Panasonic NN-SD681S. If you don't adapt well to 'different' this probably is not for you. But the differences between this and 'normal' microwaves are almost all positive. Not the light going out when you open it, however. I should mention that I bought this 2 weeks ago to replace a Frigidaire microwave that lasted less than a year. I only hope the Panasonic has better staying power. First off, this microwave feels better-made than any other microwave we've owned (about 5 or 6 by now). It's sturdy, the door opens and closes with a feeling of solidity and smoothness and proper fit. The dial is a very interesting difference. No dedicated 1-minute, 2-minute, etc., buttons. But the dial will get you there with little effort. Because it's different, it takes getting used to however. Still it's very well designed: it starts at units of seconds and once you've turned up to 10, it then graduates by 5 second units; and then by 10 second units, and eventually 15 second units. I.e. the dial is actually very sensitive. And turning a single potentiometer turns out to be very user-friendly, compared to having to poke membrane buttons to set, say, 2 minutes 50 seconds, if that's what you want. There is a dedicated button called Quick Min. If you want a minute or 2 or 3 it's very useful. You have to keep pressing it to get to 5 or 6 minutes, however, and we are finding the dial to be just as easy if we need that much time. Quick Min is still very useful for shorter times. The Inverter technology is the real knockout here. If you think about it, using a normal microwave at Power Level 3 is pretty crude. It just shuts off the microwaving for 70% of the time. With the Inverter, you microwave the whole time, but much more gently. In other words, defrosting with the Panasonic is a whole different thing. The first time I used the Turbo Inverter Defrost I was really pleasantly surprised at how perfectly it defrosted some frozen chicken. We have never used a microwave to actually "cook" anything. But with this microwave I am going to give that a try as well. Apart from the light not staying on when you open it, this microwave is a winner.

My wife and I bought this microwave to replace our previous oven which was about twenty years old, so it had been awhile since we'd looked at these things. We looked at several similar models and ultimately decided on this Panasonic, as it had all of the features we thought we wanted, as well as my personal experience and trust with the brand. After a fairly short learning period, we've decided we love this oven. Microwave ovens have come a long way in twenty years, and it's nice not to have to tell the appliance how long to re-heat a plate of food or defrost a frozen item. The sensor feature seems to cook/heat food items properly, and the inverter technology allows for quick and reliable defrosting. It really hasn't let us down once, and after a few times using these features I was able to just set it and walk away. PROS: -Fast, powerful and reliable cooking, re-heating and defrosting. -The sensor and inverter technologies are easy to use and perform well. -Documentation is complete, concise and helpful. -The stainless steel finish looks great. CONS: -None so far, after about a month of regular use.

Oh my experience with this microwave has been a train wreck. I got it from amazon and after about 2 months of use the microwave would just randomly stop while you were using it. So you would be cooking something and you would set it for say 2.00 minutes and about 15 seconds it would just stop with no error message. This didn't happen every time but happened enough that it got very annoying. I contacted panasonic because it was too later to return it to amazon. I'm not giving it such a low score because of this. Things break sometimes and thats no reason for 1 start but i will describe my support experience (which is why i gave it 1 star). My experience with panasonic support was one of the worst experiences i have ever had. 1st i live in descent size community (the capital of the state at ~250,000 people). So i'm not in the middle of know where. I can't tell you how many run arounds panasonic gave me. First getting through their automated system to talk to someone was a pain in itself. Then after after getting through i was told that the closest authorized repair show was 1.5 hours away. They wanted me to drive there. 6 hours of driving (once to drop it off and once to pick it up)...NO THANK YOU. They didn't know what to do. So they gave me some BS story about how they are searching for other locations in my area to fix it. OK you already don't know your own service locations? They said they would call me back within 2 days...which of course they NEVER DID. This went on for 3 weeks. I would call and they would say they are still searching and would call me by a specific date and i never received 1 call from them (and yes i talked to more than one manager after getting mad). Finally they asked me to take a picture of the stickers on the inside of my door and to send my amazon receipt to them which i did. So its now at about 5 weeks with an unreliable microwave that always seems to shut off. I called Monday and i was promised everything would be taken care of by Friday (and of course they would call me). Well guess what i had to call the next Monday. They THEN asked me to peel the door stickers off my microwave and mail it to some place on the east cost. I asked why don't you just send me a box and i'll send the entire thing which they would not do. Hmm how likely do you think it is that small sticker would have been lost when Panasonic received it? Thankfully amazon is AWESOME. I called amazon and they said they would take care of it. They sent me a new microwave and the ups driver just had me put the old one in the new box. The new microwave works perfectly and i really like it but just pray you don't EVER had to deal with panasonic support. I don't know what the failure rate of these Microwaves are but it might be a good idea to buy a squaretrade (which are awesome to deal with) warranty rather than dealing with panasonic.

The Panasonic NN-SD681S microwave is excellent. I've had it for about a month and for the first time I am using the sensor features on a microwave. The sensor is a moisture sensor sensitive enough to detect the increase in water vapour as frozen food warms up but is still frozen. The oven does a great job of defrosting provided the frozen food is reasonably uniform in size. A steak, chicken breast with the pointed end tucked under, ground meat, sausages, etc that are open to the air so that moisture can be detected by the sensor, defrost to the point where they are just barely frozen without cooked parts. I was surprised that the auto setting for soften or melt butter works fairly well. Melted butter usually has a blob that is not quite melted but it melts with a stir after microwaving,. The butter does not pop and splatter all over the inside of the oven. Cooking is more even than I had in past microwave ovens. If you use the auto-cook, reheat, auto-defrost, keep warm, melt/soften butter settings then you must not open the door to check on progress because the moisture leaves the oven cavity which causes the oven to think that its contents are less defrosted, cooked, heated. Easy to use, easy to clean. I love it.

It's awesome! :) very happy with it. Gotta admit i don't have much microwave oven expertice but it works well :)

works great sensor reheat favorite preset would recommend

Looks great and works great . What else is there to say ?

It looks nice. It heats quickly. However, I have to read the manual since this one is so different than my old one.