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Electrolux EI30GF45QS review: Electrolux's gas stove can't keep up with the competition

The $2,700 Electrolux EI30GF45QS cooks food well -- as long as you have the time to spare.

Ashlee Clark Thompson Associate Editor
Ashlee spent time as a newspaper reporter, AmeriCorps VISTA and an employee at a healthcare company before she landed at CNET. She loves to eat, write and watch "Golden Girls" (preferably all three at the same time). The first two hobbies help her out as an appliance reviewer. The last one makes her an asset to trivia teams. Ashlee also created the blog, AshleeEats.com, where she writes about casual dining in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ashlee Clark Thompson
3 min read

In a different world, this would be a glowing review of the $2,700 Electrolux EI30GF45QS gas stove. It's a good-looking appliance that will class up your kitchen. For the most part, it bakes, broils and roasts food that ends up tasting great. So what's the problem? 

7.1

Electrolux EI30GF45QS

The Good

The $2,700 Electrolux EI30GF45QS slide-in gas stove is good with meat -- its convection roast mode cooks a juicy chicken and the broiler gently cooks hamburger patties at high heat without drying them out.

The Bad

The stove's cook times lags behind those of similar gas ranges, and there's some uneven baking when you cook more than one rack of food.

The Bottom Line

This stove can hold its own in a kitchen. But if speed is what you're after, you better shop around.

The sheen of this Electrolux slide-in range dulls when you compare it with similar gas stoves. The Electrolux's cook times fall behind those of other appliances, especially when you look at how long it takes to broil hamburger patties. And its 4.5 cubic feet of oven space seems tiny when you hold it up to ovens that give you more than 6 cubic feet. 

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The Electrolux EI30GF45QS

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

I'd give the EI30GF45QS an enthusiastic endorsement if it weren't for these comparisons. Instead, I have to add a couple of caveats. The EI30GF45QS will cook your food well and look good doing it. But if it's speed you value, you can find stoves from other brands that will cook food faster for about the same amount of money, such as the $2,650 KitchenAid KSGB900ESS.

Heavy on visual appeal, but light on baking space

The EI30GF45QS is the gas version of the Electrolux EI30EF45QS electric range, and the two are nearly identical. Both of these stainless-steel ranges are 30-inch-wide slide-in models, which means there's no back panel. Instead, all the controls are located on the front of the units. This created the same problem on both stoves: It's too easy to accidentally press a button on the control panel when you reach across the cooktop. 

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There are 4.5 cubic feet of space inside the oven cavity. There's also a convection fan in the back wall to circulate hot air.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The EI30GF45QS is a mixed bag when it comes to how much you can cook at once. The cooktop has five burners, including an oblong center burner that accompanies the griddle that comes with the stove. But that generous cooking space doesn't extend into the oven, where you only get 4.5 cubic feet. Similar stoves such as the Samsung NX58H9500WS, the KitchenAid KSGB900ESS and the Kenmore 72583 have at least 5 cubic feet of space. This doesn't mean you can't cook a Thanksgiving turkey in the EI30GF45QS, it will just be a much tighter fit. 

Other notable features on the EI30GF45QS include the convection fan built into the back of the oven wall, a warming drawer below the oven and a temperature probe that you plug into the oven to track the internal temperature of dishes you're baking or roasting. The oven also comes with a gliding rack, an offset rack and a standard rack.

Cook times lag behind other gas stoves

When it comes to cooking, the EI30GF45QS is noticeably slower at basic tasks than similar gas stoves. Let's start with the not-so-bad-but-could-be-better boil times:

Large-burner boil test (gas models)

Kenmore 74343 9.75LG LDG4315ST 10.65Samsung NX58H9500WS 11.35Kenmore 72583 11.4Electrolux EI30GF45QS 11.55KitchenAid KSGB900ESS 14Dacor RNRP36GS 15.38
Note: Time to achieve rolling boil, in minutes

It took an average of 11.55 minutes for the EI30GF45QS to bring 112 ounces of water to boil. That's nearly 4 minutes faster than the most expensive gas range we've reviewed, the Dacor RNRP36GS. But that time still trails nearly 2 minutes behind the $1,400 Kenmore 74343, the gas range with the fastest boil times we've tested.

Broil times were even more disappointing:

Hamburger broiling test (gas models)

KitchenAid KGRS306BSS 14.62KitchenAid KSGB900ESS 15.88Samsung NX58H9500WS 16.78Frigidaire FPGH3077RF 18.83Electrolux EI30GF45QS 19.68Kenmore 72583 21.12Whirlpool WEG730H0DS 24.08
Note: Time to achieve 145 degrees F, in minutes

It took an average of nearly 20 minutes for the EI30GF45QS to bring six hamburger patties to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a super sluggish time when you stand the EI30GF45QS's performance next to its competitors'.

But there's a flip side to the EI30GF45QS's performance. Though it takes a long time to get those burgers to our testing temperature, the end result was patties that retained their juiciness despite being under direct heat for about 20 minutes. That's definitely a coup for the EI30GF45QS -- if you're willing to carve out the time to wait for those aforementioned juicy burgers.

And the convection roast setting produced an equally moist chicken, though the skin could've been crispier:

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The skin needed a little more crispiness, but the meat of this roast chicken was nice and moist.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The EI30GF45QS's baking chops are just decent. The convection fan, which circulates air for more even baking, wasn't effective enough to evenly cook two racks of biscuits at the same time. The biscuits that baked on the bottom right side of the oven were regularly lighter than the rest of the biscuits across two racks:

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The biscuits in the top left picture were baked on a higher rack than the biscuits in the bottom left picture. Color rendering of the browning is on the right.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Final thoughts on the EI30GF45QS

I'd be happy with what this stove can do with food if I didn't compare this stove with other products -- the EI30GF45QS is a solid product if you don't mind the wait. But if a quickly cooked dish is a must-have for your mealtimes, you can find stoves from other brands that can cook food faster for the same amount of money.

7.1

Electrolux EI30GF45QS

Score Breakdown

Design 7Features 8Usability 8Performance 6