Why You Can Trust CNET Electrolux EI30EF45QS review: This stove's performance is on fire (in a good way)
You'll churn out meals fast with the Electrolux EI30EF45QS, an electric slide-in range that cooks food quickly and evenly.
You'd probably pass up the $2,500 Electrolux EI30EF45QS slide-in electric range if you saw it in a store. It's a good-looking, stainless-steel appliance, but it doesn't stand out much from similar stoves. Its features -- smooth cooktop, convection fans, warming drawer -- are no longer unique among ranges at that price point. And speaking of cost, $2,500 might be the only thing you need to know to give this Electrolux a hard pass.
Electrolux EI30EF45QS
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Don't let your first impressions fool you, though. Behind those seemingly run-of-the-mill specs, Electrolux has created an impressive range that outshines its competitors. The EI30EF45QS will cut your cooking tasks short thanks to quick cook times, and its oven excels at baking foods evenly.
The EI30EF45QS has relatively few shortcomings -- the oven cavity is small, and it's easy to accidentally press a button on the control panel if you lean against the appliance. I still recommend the EI30EF45QS for folks who are looking for a range with a professional-inspired exterior with a high-quality, consistent cooking chops.
Appearance and features
The EI30EF45QS's design and features are similar to what we've seen with other similarly priced stoves, such as the $2,600 Kenmore 41313 and $3,100 Samsung NE58K9850WG electric ranges. It's a stainless steel, slide-in model, which means the burner knobs and control panel are located in the front, and there's no back panel on the oven (the better to show off your backsplash). I accidentally pressed buttons on the control panel if I reached across the cooktop to get something from a back burner or turn on an overhead light. (I think a control panel that was tilted more would solve that problem.) There are four burners on the flat cooktop, one of which can be adapted to heat pans of different sizes, and a warming zone you can use to keep cooked food hot.
The cooktop features four electric burners and a warming zone to keep cooked foods hot. The burner on the front right side of the cooktop can also accommodate pans and pots of various sizes.
The oven is small, with only 4.6 cubic feet of space (most of the other ovens we've tested are between 5 and 6 cubic feet), but it will hold full-size baking sheets and roasting pans. I blame the warming drawer beneath the oven cavity for taking up baking space, but the drawer is a good addition if you need to keep a pan of food warm for a while.
The oven also has two convection fans built into the back wall. When you use a convection mode, the fans circulate the hot air inside the oven so there is more even heat distribution for more consistent cooking, especially when you bake food on more than one oven rack or roast a piece of meat.
Performance
The EI30EF45QS performed well in our cook tests. It baked food evenly and quickly, two features you want in an oven. First, let's take a look at how long it took a 112-ounce pot of water to reach a boil compared with other ranges:
Large-burner boil test (electric models)
The EI30EF45QS boiled water in an average of 9.12 minutes, which is the second-fastest boil time we've seen among electric, slide-in ranges (sad face to the Samsung NE58K9850WG, the slowest range in this culinary weight class).
The EI30EF45QS is a decent cooker when it comes to broiling burgers. It took an average of 14.18 minutes to bring six hamburger patties to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hamburger Broiling Test (electric models)
Even baking turned out to be the EI30EF45QS's strongest feature. I baked two sheets of refrigerated biscuits at the same time using the convection bake mode, which means the convection fans were in use. The oven did a good job at browning the biscuits evenly across both racks of biscuits. The biscuits that baked on the top rack toward the back of the oven were slightly browner than the others, but it wasn't a deal breaker.
The pictures on the left show biscuits that I baked simultaneously on convection bake mode. The pictures on the right show color representations of the brownness of each biscuit.
The convection fans also worked well when I roasted a chicken. The even heat distribution resulted in a golden-brown chicken with super-moist meat and crisp skin.
The convection roast mode on this Electrolux range produced a great chicken.
Final thoughts
The EI30EF45QS is the electric range for folks who value consistent and fast cooking. At first glance, it might not stand out from similar electric slide-in models like the Kenmore 41313 or the KitchenAid KSEG950ESS. But Electrolux has created an upper mid-range appliance that outperforms similar models in terms of quality and speed of cooking. And the $2,500 makes this one of the least expensive options for slide-in electric ranges. If this is the type of stove you want for your kitchen, the EI30EF45QS is a good bet.
Electrolux EI30EF45QS
