Hi.
I'm Katie Pilkington for CNET and I'm here with the review of the Whirlpool WMC50522AS Microwave.
As you can see, this is a really, really large countertop microwave.
It has 2.2 cubic feet of interior capacity.
This model retails for $279 that you can find it cheaper on other second party websites.
Two hundred
and seventy-nine dollars may seem like a lot to pay for microwave but let us assure you that puts it squarely in the middle of that mid-price range.
Another important thing to know is that this is a 1200-watt microwave which means it's high power, cooks your food faster and more efficiently and manufacturers also say that the higher the wattage, the more evenly your food is cooked.
So, you can expect a better quality product they claim.
When assessing a microwave's functionality to establish and determine its worth, the presets are definitely something
that we like to look at and those are kind of where we centered our tests.
Even though all popcorn manufacturers say to never ever, ever, ever use a popcorn present on a microwave, we threw caution to the wind and tested it anyways because after all, what are the presets therefore if not to be used.
With the popcorn test, the preset functions really well, leaving on average about 70 kernels unpopped, this may seem like a lot but the average standard size bag of popcorn includes more than 440
kernels.
So, they leave 70 unpopped fell within our expected range.
Other presets that we tested that worked really well were the potato preset.
The skin got crispy and the insides were easily mashed with fork.
We took that as a sign that a higher wattage was working for us but it seemed that the higher wattage sometimes goes a little bit too far as with the case of frozen dinners.
The frozen on tray preset works, it will cook your food, but in the case of our Stouffer's lasagna test, it overcooked it.
And our taste tester said that it was more
lasagna soup than lasagna.
The same was true when we tried to reheat day old pizza.
The microwave took it just a little bit too far but since the frozen pizza was really the only preset that didn't work quite as well as we expected.
We can forgive the Whirlpool that.
All of this brings us to the ultimate question when you're trying to make one of these purchases which is, is it worth the $279 price point?
Well, that tag definitely places it in a reasonable range within the category's pricing.
We definitely would recommend that if you're looking for a microwave, it's gonna give you a little bit more bang for your buck than you look at the Panasonic NN-SD997S.
Its Inverter Technology and advanced sensors make it a better value and it's only $20 than the Whirlpool.
But if you like this model in particular and our intrigued by its appearance and/or function, you can't go wrong and it will do all of the things that you expected to do as a microwave and kitchen appliance.
With the Whirlpool
WMC50522AS Microwave, I'm Katie Pilkington for CNET.
