My wife and I evaluated several choices to replace our basic oven / range this past year. The winner? Whirlpool's smoothtop self-cleaning electric range (Model RF386PXGQ). So far, we've been pleased with our selection. Let me tell you why...

The Oven
Having used basic oven models all of my life, I was impressed with the size of this oven. At 4.65 cubic feet, it is not the roomiest oven available (some go up to 5.0 cubic feet), but it was certainly larger than the "standard" models. Five shelf settings for the two shelves also seem very appropriate for the model.

The oven preheats rapidly -- just 4:15 for preheating the oven to 350 degrees. And it retains heat well too. We can open the oven door an hour or more after using it and still have significant heat escaping from inside.

Whirlpool's Accu-Bake system was one of the features that drew us toward this model. Both upper and lower heating elements are used to heat the oven. We had hoped that this approach would allow for very even baking of items on multiple shelves simultaneously. Unfortunately, our experience has been that the lower shelved cookies cook faster than those on higher shelves. Besides that relatively minor shortcoming, we have been pleased with the performance to date. Temperatures are accurate and fairly evenly distributed. (I love being able to actually set the temperature and know that it is accurate.)

We have not used the self-cleaning feature thus far.

The Cooktop
The smooth cooktop was a "must have" feature. My wife likes to keep her kitchen clean and the coils and overflow pans from our previous oven were regularly being pulled out and scoured. As expected, the new smooth top is much easier to clean, but it does require some special care. A ceramic cleaner must be used to remove stains and keep the top looking like new.

The smooth top also had an unexpected benefit. Because more of a pot's or pan's surface is actually touching the heated surface, foods are heated faster.

The model we chose also has one burner with an Accu-simmer setting. If this optional feature is used, foods can remain in a very specific state of simmer. This has come in handy when my wife is melting chocolate or making gravy.

The Controls
The control panel of the range is aesthetically pleasing and reasonably functional. Each burner has your typical settings from Low to High. In addition, one burner has an additional switch to activate the Accu-simmer feature mentioned above.

The clock is an LED display that doubles as a timer. The same display is also used to display the selected temperature setting for the oven. Temperature settings can be adjusted in increments of 5 degrees by pressing the up / down temperature setting buttons.

A favorite feature is the one-touch (?) preheat option. Simply press Bake and Start. The oven will preheat to 350 degrees. And the timer will count down from 4:15 to 0:00 and beep when the oven is preheated. Standard timer settings work in a similar manner. You can time your cooking to the second if you so desire.

Although the controls seem to be reasonably straightforward, we have encountered a few errors in our everyday use. On occasion, we will forget to hit the Start button when we're planning to heat the oven. You just assume it's heating because the temperature setting is displayed. And we've also accidentally shut off the oven when we only planned to shut off the timer. (The timer starts with the Start button used to start the oven, but shuts off with its own separate Stop / End button.)

Recommendation
We have been pleased with the value of our selection. We paid $472 for a display model at an appliance store chain. I doubt if I would have gained any significant additional value by selecting my second choice (GE Spectra) which costs significantly more. The range has operated very well -- only the operators (my wife and I) have screwed up. If you can find this range for a similar price, I'd grab it!


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 472