GE Advantium 120 To The Point
Written: Jan 11 '02 (Updated Nov 18 '07)
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Pros: Fast Quality Cooking; programmable menus; solid construction; 120 Volts
Cons: Must constantly swap cooking trays; exhaust is weak and noisy. Door handle broke.
The Bottom Line: You will be happy with it for all your microwaving. Plus it doubles as small convection oven. Plus it speedcooks with moderately good success.
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| homeallday's Full Review: GE Advantium SCA1000D Microwave Oven |
I won't bore you with features and details. You can read about that at the GE website or in other reviews. Instead, I'll focus on some things not the GE site or others may not have mentioned.
I purchased the GE Advantium 120 in December 2001 partly based on epinion.com reviews and an excellent sale at Best Buy for $600. On top of that GE had a year end promotional rebate of $50. So the final price was $550 plus tax (that's $200 less than other retailers). Once purchased, I was able to pick it up within 4 days. And at that price, it is within the range of a high end microwave. Considering the extra features, I think it is a good value. After one month of vigorous daily use, I feel confident that I made a good decision. Hopefully, I'll feel the same 10 years from now.
Generally, I was frustrated about the lack of knowledge of every retail salesperson on this product. Even though every store had a running video display, no one knew anything about the Advantium. I shopped Sears, Lowes, Home Depot, and Best Buy and none were any help. Two salespersons pretended to know all about it and gave me a lot info that I found out later to be false, such as "all the models required 240 volts and the speedcooking lamps were $500 (not true) and go out frequently". The GE website cleared both of those issues up. I also took a leap of faith based on my happiness with my other GE appliances and good internet reviews. No one local could tell me how the thing worked.
This is what I found out:
The 120 model has three modes: Microwave Only (requires included glass tray), Bake Only (requires included metal tray), and SpeedCook (requires included metal tray). The same metal tray is used for Baking or Speedcooking.
You cannot use the metal tray for microwaving. This is extremely annoying because we use this appliance equally for speedcooking and microwaving throughout the day. Since I work at home and my wife is home with our kid, it is used for 3 meals a day. We end up swapping the trays at least twice each meal. If it had some built in slot to store these trays, it wouldn't be so bad. Both trays are dishwasher safe and clean easily.
Bake only mode is nice because it provides an additional small convection type oven/broiler for normal cooking in oven safe dishes or directly on the metal tray. It cooks quickly because it preheats fast and circulates hot air. It does NOT toast. I wish it did, then I would throw out my toaster oven. It has a preselect "Warming" cycle which is handy for keeping hot foods hot.
Microwave only mode works very well as with any GE microwave. All the Defrost and Reheat preset selections cook accurately. My old one-button GE Hotpoint microwave has lasted 22 years and still works. Enough said.
Speedcooking is the fun part. It uses both an upper and lower heating element as well as bright halogen lamps to cook food. You can manually adjust and store your own setting for the upper and lower elements or you can enter preset "menu" items. [I don't think this mode uses the microwave. The manual doesn't really say and the retail salespeople gave me two different answers on this. But the fact that you can't use the metal tray for microwaving leads me to think that speed cooking only uses the two elements and the halogen lamp.] It cycles the halogen lamp on and off during cooking.
Installation will require quite a bit of drilling into the wall and upper cabinet as well as two very strong people to lift the unit into place. The exhaust fan is fixed in the center rear of the unit, so if your exhaust ductwork is off center, prepare for a difficult installation (I had to relocate wall studs). The fan can be configured to direct air flow up or back. It is also a heavy unit so you may need to add additional nails or screws to secure your upper cabinet.
A big advantage of the 120 model is that it directly replaces an existing over the stove microwave. It is 120 Volts unlike the other Advantiums which require rewiring the outlet for 240 Volts. This is significant for consumer acceptance. The downside is that the speed cooking is not as fast as the more expensive models.
The interior and exterior are very easy to keep clean. Just wipe with a damp sponge. My unit has thick gauge stainless on the inside and is gloss black on the outside. It is one heck of a sturdy machine and the interior is much bigger than I expected. All buttons and knobs are "real" buttons; not cushioned plastic mesh that wears out or discolors like most microwaves. If you can operate a modern TV remote and program a VCR timer, you will definitely be able to handle the controls. If you don't like to fiddle with buttons and knob turning or multiple menus, then choose a simpler model.
The exhaust fan is 300cfm and has Low and High speeds. Both speeds are noisy and interfere with conversation in the kitchen or TV in the den. Sadly, all overhead microwaves have this problem and our old hood exhaust was worse. It does a reasonably good job pulling cooking vapors out, but it is no match for a good ($300+) dedicated hood exhaust. It has low and high halogen lights underneath which light up a smooth ceramic cooktop wonderfully.
Okay, so what about the important thing; Does it cook good food or not? The answer is Yes, for the most part. The speedcook mode definitely does better than a plain old microwave. But the food quality that GE advertises is questionable. Maybe the model 120 just doesn't have enough wattage to work as well as the other models. We have tried about one third of the recipes in the included cookbook. So far, all of them tasted fine, but it will not replace your all your oven or stovetop cooked meals. The Advantium definitely cooks most meals at half the time or less, but in many cases, you sacrifice some of the crispness and flavor from traditional cooking. The built-in menu settings generally are accurate, but I found that with many meals I got better results (more crispy) by cooking just a couple of minutes longer with higher heat settings. Of course, this ruins the time savings that is advertised.
Here are some examples of foods that worked great on Speedcook mode and in excellent time:
baked potatoes(12 minutes and crispy!), baked squash, frozen hamburgers, stuffed peppers, corn dogs, frozen french fries, mac&cheese cassarole, baked chicken breast, burritos, steamed vegetables.
Here are some examples of foods that worked fine on Speedcook mode, but I would go back to traditional cooking:
steaks of any kind, any type of baked fish (it comes out chewy in the Advantium), handmade hamburgers, anything with eggs (omlette, quiche, etc.)
Here is a hint: use oven safe dinner plates so you can speedcook and eat off the same plate. The plate goes right in the dishwasher. No pots or pans to clean up!
The microwave only mode and the Bake only mode both work very well for just about anything. It is very convenient to speed cook something partly and then conventional bake it until it is the texture you want without moving it.
If you need to replace a recently recalled Whirpool or some older microwave and you already have a 120 Volt outlet over your stove, you should buy this appliance! You will be happy with it for all your microwaving. Plus it doubles as small convection oven. Plus it speedcooks with elements and lamps. And the exhaust fan is as effective as any other over-the-range microwave. The tray swapping is annoying, but I admit that after the first two weeks, it was second nature.
Some say it's expensive, but if you shop around, you will find one on sale and with a rebate like I did for about $550 + tax. The retailers may hate me for quoting the price I paid. The unit I bought was special order too and arrived in 4 days. Two stores quoted me $749 and 3 week delivery plus shipping charges!
Unfortunately, more people would have these if retail salespeople were better trained to demonstrate it properly. Fortunately, Ge provides a nice CD-Rom video, a nice cookbook, and decent manual to help you get your money's worth.
Updated: Feb 20, 2005
We're still happy with our Advantium. Except for my wife breaking the glass microwave tray (replacement was $70) it has worked reliably. We have found that we gravitate toward using the Speedcook (halogen light using the metal tray) function mostly for cooking Taquitos, corn dogs, and tater tots (our kids favorites). Sometimes for reheating cassaroles. Microwave functions (using the glass tray) work flawlessly. Most of our guests cannot figure out the complicated controls though. Still highly recommended product concept.
Updated: Nov 18, 2007
Still like this machine. Have gutted and remodeled the kitchen. But kept this unit! Though the handle breaks repeatedly where the lower screw attaches. Replaced it ($$), but broke again. Glue holds for a while but has to be reglued about twice a year.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 550
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Epinions.com ID:
homeallday
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Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Electrical Engineer. Picky about product quality. Always looking for best product vs. cost.
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