Max Burton 6600 Model 18XL Digital Induction Cooktop, Portable, 1800W/120VAC, LCD Display, Push-To-Set Control Knob, Touchpad Controls, 21 Temperature Settings, Program Lock, Programmable Cooking

I have a high-end gas range and love it, but I use this portable induction unit for ⅔ of my day-to-day cooking. Why? I doesn't heat up the kitchen in the summer like the gas range does. It isn't producing toxic fumes. It's actually faster for many situations. I don't see any reason to get a 220-volt version. This 120v works fine. It works great with cast iron and carbon steel cookware, which I tend to use almost exclusively. I love the timer feature. I can set something for 20 minutes at a particular power and do something else without having to worry about burning/scalding. I wish all ranges had this feature. Also, the timer combined with a low power setting and a dutch oven makes the burner into a crock pot. Very handy. Brown it and slow cook it all in the same pot. The burner is also very easy to clean... for the most part. I have to take a razor blade to it every once in a while, but generally speaking there are not crevasses or holes that attract nasty stuff. I also love that it is much safer than gas or regular electric. It would be very hard to set a dish towel on fire. When you remove a pan, the surface is not red hot. It's hot, but not fire-inducing hot. This would be perfect for an old senile person... if, and only if, these companies could figure out how to make the interface intuitive (see below).What I don't like about it...-The beeps are loud and annoying. The manufacturer needs to come up with a more pleasing set of tones.-The fan is also an unpleasant sound, but I imagine this is something that all induction burners have.-The interface is terrible. Pushing and holding buttons. Not intuitive. Cheap feeling. The dial isn't continuous... it's not analogue. It might as well be up and down arrow buttons. From what I can tell, all induction interfaces are terrible except for the $1500 Breville. These lower end companies need to figure out how to make their interfaces more natural feeling. They currently feel a bit like operating a VCR back in the 80s. These induction burners are perfect for seniors who might be forgetful... if only these induction burners were more intuitive to operate. I imagine a slightly senile older person would have a lot of trouble figuring out how to operate these things.-The temperature/power settings are great in that they are consistently the same. However, they achieve their lower temps by cycling on and off. So, a low temperature setting for melting chocolate or keeping something like gravy warm, will boil in bursts and then sit there with no heat. If you have a small quantity of gravy, for example, these bursts of heat can scald/burn it.-Like all induction, only points of contact get hot. The sides of a skillet don't get very hot, so you have to modify your cooking methods to take that into account.Pro and Con: This thing is big. The larger heating coil is worth the footprint. I can use my largest cookware on it. But, it takes up a lot of counter space.Overall the pros outweigh the cons. As I said, I use this induction burner about ⅔ of the time. There is a learning curve to using it, mostly because to the clunky interface.

I bought this partly as an experiment to see what induction cooking offers. Having moved from a home with a gas stove to one with electric, I missed very much the ability to control the heat instantaneously. In researching induction burners, I came up with the following requirements.Requirements:- I wanted something that I can use with a good-sized frying pan or dutch oven without getting hot spots in the middle. This was surprisingly hard to find -- most induction burners have much smaller heating spots than their size would suggest. This burner has a large heating area and, having checked it out with an infrared thermometer, it's quite even with my 11" frying pan.- A large number of temperature settings. One advantage of the induction burner is that temperature control is instantaneous, more like a gas stove. However, many of the cheaper burners have so few heat settings, you'd be constantly turning them up and down trying to get the temperature right. This burner is not perfect in that regard, but it's not bad -- it has 10 degree adjustments from 100-200, then 25 degree adjustments from that point on. When I need to keep something just below a boil, it's a pity I don't have 210. If that sounds overly precise, bear in mind that the thermostat is measuring the heat from the bottom of the pan and not the temperature of the mixture inside the pan. I find that if I'm heating oil on, say, medium (around 250), the bottom of the pan will get quite hot and the burner will reduce the heat. Then when I add ingredients, it takes some time for the burner to register that and increase the heat to compensate. This is going to be true of all induction burners. Most burners I found with better options were significantly more expensive, and for me, getting this model is the right tradeoff.This model does come with a nice thermometer that is great if cooking, say, soups and stews, where the burner can be set to match the temperature of the liquid. This is much more accurate than going by surface temperature. It's not useful for sauteing onions or as a meat thermometer for a roast, though -- it will detect that the inside of the meat is well below temperature and push the burner temperature up, trying to get the meat where you want it, likely burning the bottom of the roast.With all that said, I've enjoyed using this burner. Although it's relatively large as induction burners go, it's still light and portable enough that I can move it around the kitchen to a spot where I can see the living room TV, or bring it to a cook-out. Cookware designed to work with induction heats very quickly. And because the surface never gets super-hot, there isn't the same problem of food splashes becoming baked on that I have with my glass-top stove.In terms of noise, all induction burners seem to have a fan inside. The one in this model is certainly loud enough that you can hear it, but not too bad -- I'd say it's less loud than my hood ventilation on low. What is loud on this model is the <beep> sound that accompanies every action. If you want to go up 5 temperature settings, that's one beep to put the burner into settings mode, 5 beeps for each temperature setting you go through, then another beep or two to do the setting. It's not terrible, just an annoyance, especially when it's clear on the display what is happening without a need for the audio cue.I don't want to come across as overly critical. This is a great burner, and in fact I much prefer to cook on it versus my stove. In the months that I've had it, I've cooked soups, stews, curries, eggs and bacon for breakfast and many other recipes. Despite the top surface being glass, it shows no wear, and I've never had a problem with clean-up. If you're looking for something with similar requirements to mine, I'd highly recommend it.