Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a great induction burner. Built fairly well, controls are easy to use, and I'm quite satisfied with my purchase. I recommend it. If you want more technical info, read on. I had many questions about the wide variety of induction burners available. Some can be answered by reading the plethora of reviews out there, but it was nearly impossible to find out the size of the induction coil, and whether it would work for a larger pot or pan. Basically, how long it takes to do anything more than boil a single cup of water - which I never do. That is what a microwave is for. After much searching, I decided to simply buy the one that seemed to provide the features I wanted the most. First, I wanted the most power available for a 120v outlet - which turns out to be an 1800W element/coil/burner. Second, I wanted easy, simple controls that would be likely to last. This one fit that perfectly because the controls are under the glass, where they cannot be hurt by spills. I don't like blister buttons. They never last in my experience. Like I said earlier, I don't care if this thing can boil a cup of water. I wanted to know if this will be a valuable addition to my kitchen. I live in southern Arizona, and in the summer, I am always trying to minimize my cooling bill. To that end, it seemed like maybe one or two of these tabletop induction units might be helpful, instead of using my ceramic/glass radiant heat cooktop (no gas in my subdivision). Using two different pots, the new Duxtop 8300, and my traditional ceramic glass cooktop, I performed a series of tests to determine just how fast or efficient the new induction unit really is. Here are some details regarding the test equipment: Cookware - I used Calphalon Contemporary Stainless cookware, which is a medium/high grade tri-ply stainless with an aluminum core. Not the best stuff out there, but of a reasonably high quality. I used an 8 quart stockpot containing 6 quarts of cold tap water, and a 2.5 quart saucepan containing 1 quart of cold tap water. After each test, the water was dumped, and the pot cooled. Baseline cooktop - A Jenn-Air ceramic/glass 5 burner cooktop. For this test, I used two burners. The first is a 3kw burner - the most powerful, and the second is a 1.8kw burner, because it matches the power of the Duxtop. Test unit - Duxtop 8300ST. Solid glass top, no blister buttons, 1800w (1.8kw). Here are the results of my testing. Not entirely scientific, but good enough for my purposes. I took a video and will try to put it here, so you can see what I mean when I say "rolling boil". 8qt pot w/ 6qt of water 1.8kw Induction = 23min to achieve full rolling boil 3kw Radiant = 18min to achieve full rolling boil 1.8kw Radiant = 23min to achieve full rolling boil 2.5qt pot w/ 1qt of water 1.8kw Induction = 4min to achieve full rolling boil 3kw Radiant = could not use, too large a diameter for the pot 1.8kw Radiant = 6.5min to achieve full rolling boil In summary, with a large full pot, this induction burner is not powerful enough to impress. It is not bad, and produced virtually no radiant heat like I feel with the radiant cooktop, but was 5 minutes slower than a high powered radiant heat burner. While matching the Duxtop to an equally powered radiant heat burner produce virtually the same time when boiling the large pot of water. However, you can see that when using a more sensible pot for the size of the induction cooktop, it was well able to achieve a full rolling boil more than 50% faster than the traditional radiant burner. Not bad at all. Next, I wanted to know more about how large the coil was under the glass. I had previously emailed Secura (the parent company) and asked about the size of the coil. Frankly, I was not expecting an answer, and if I did receive one I expected the answer to be useless. However, I was pleasantly surprised to get the following response: "Dear Tony, Thank you for writing to us about duxtop. The copper coil under the ceramic glass is about 6" diameter. It is a pretty standard diameter for almost all induction cooktops to pass safety regulations. Secura" After using the unit, and watching the bubbles forming at the bottom of the pans, I was relatively confident that their statement was fairly accurate - but I wanted to know exactly. So, I opened it up and measured it. The copper coil has a diameter of 6.75". I've added pictures here of the disassembled unit. Hopefully Secura doesn't frequent this site and void my warranty. The touch controls work great. They are very responsive, similar to using my HTC Android phone. As for fan noise, I can't believe people would actually complain about it. No, it is not silent, but it is very mellow. The high pitched whine is present with my cookware. I cannot hear it (too old I guess) but my teenagers do. They tell me the closer you are, the worse it is, but after about 10 seconds, it fades to the point where they have to put their ear up to it to hear it, so I guess they'll be ok. Over all, I am really pleased with this little cooktop. It is exactly what I had hoped, and I anticipate it getting lots of use. I cannot say anything about how well it will last, but in general, I don't notice anything that I would call a weakness. The cord is very heavy. The glass is standard thickness, and the black plastic base seems sturdy enough to take reasonable use. One last note; the unit came missing one of the rubber feet. I promptly emailed Secura and asked if they'd send a replacement. The same evening I received a reply indicating a replacement would be in the mail the next day. The following morning, I received another email with the tracking number for the missing foot. Very quick response. I hope I've answered all the questions you've been frustrated with, like I was.