Choosing a Microwave oven
There are three types of Microwave oven available in India. They are 1) Basic, 2) Basic with Grill and 3) Basic with Grill and Convection. Almost all of them are imported and no large scale manufacturing is done here. The question is how to decide which is to be bought?
My suggestion is first visit some of the dealers and collect pamphlets of the various model with indicative price and get know of the features of the models.
After that decide whether you are going to buy basic or other. This largely depends on the user and his budget for spending. Let us assume one decides to buy the Convection model. There are brands of Samsung, Whirlpool, Sharp, Kenstar, BPL and so on. The latest entry is Galanz. A visit to the website of Galanz says that they command about 30% world market. It is from China and the cost is very very competitive. Does it mean that this can be readily be bought? No let us go further.
List out all the parameters( Summarised below) and allocate marks to each according to your priority. The total should be 100. For example, size of the turntable. I may prefer that it has to be large enough so that number of vessels can be kept in one time. So I allot a maximum mark of 15 for the size. If the size is large enough, say, 312 mm width, then it will get full mark. If the size is 288 mm, it will get 13 and if the size is only 240(minimum), the mark is 6. For the minimum range, allot half of what you have fixed and go on increasing corresponding to the variation.
Like wise all the features are to be ranked. For example, I give the following.
Particulars Max Mark Samsung Mark
For C100F model
Turntable 15 13
Door-Front down 12 6
Size 5 5
Cavity 5 5
Rotary/ Feather touch 5 5
Preset Menu 5 3
Power Level 5 4
Memory 5 0
Delay start 5 0
Gifts 5 5
Cookery Classes 7 7
After Sales Service 5 5
Convection 8 8
Price 8 6
Max cooking time 5 5
Total 100 77
Here I had given more marks to the Ceramic cavity rather than stainless steel as I thought that would retain more heat. If any one thinks other way, they can change their marks.
After ranking, find out which has scored more and go for that. Please remember, all the brands and even within the brand, the models will not have all the features we are looking for. We need to select the one which is relatively nearer to our requirement. Hence this exercise.
No doubt this involves some deskwork. But imagine, it is better to sit for 30 minutes rather than regretting full time later.