I did a _lot_ of review-reading and comparing before buying a range, so I pretty much knew I wanted a Kenmore/GE/Amana/Tappan "family" of gas range going in. I decided on self-cleaning (Consumer Reports says that these days it's actually cheaper to self-clean than to buy the equivalent amount of cleanser!), sealed burners (helps with drips, tho' not as much as they say), and gas (part of our house setup). Some models have a bottom "storage tray", some use it as a "warmer drawer" (it has its own temp. control), and some have none. I strongly recommend paying the few extra $$ for the warmer drawer, it's great!

As far as the functionality goes, about the most I can say is that there's nothing bad I can say - turn it on, and away it goes. Burners seem to provide a nice steady heat, oven provides a nice even temperature, and so forth.

I'd give these ranges 5 stars except for one very poor (and very easily fixed) design feature. There's a digital display which you use both to set the timer, and to set oven temperature. There's one "+" button and one "-" button, which change the timer by 1 minute and the oven temperature by 5 degrees. This sounds fine, until you use it.

Say you want to cook something at 450. You hit the "oven" button, and it has a default temperature of 345. To cook at 450, you need to hit the idiot button 21 times ((450 - 345)/5). This is SO annoying! The timer has a similar problem. They try to get "cute" and have the timer go up 10 minutes at a time if you press it "long enough", but as you have no way of knowing when "long enough" kicks in, it winds up doing more harm than good. This is a real shame - something that would be SO easy to fix (add one more button, or make oven temp a rotary knob, etc.) and it really detracts from our enjoyment.

Take a look at this before you buy - we wound up buying a $7 oven timer from Target to do the oven timing, and grin and bear it whenever we bake.

Oh, one last thing - Sears seems to randomly put in large sales on random models, check 'em out weekly - models seem to "flicker" on and off of sale. Find a model you want and then wait for a sale.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 480