Microwave: Sharp R-305KS
September 23rd, 2007
Sixty years ago, a scientist was playing around with a magnetron when he discovered that radar waves would melt chocolate. The company that owned that scientist, Raytheon, slapped a refrigerator-sized box around the magnetron and sold the first microwave oven for over $3000–which in the 1940s was enough to buy a small island in the South Pacific.
Other companies soon got into the microwave oven business, and by the 1970s microwaves were so cheap that they had become an indispensable part of any kitchen, commercial or home. The microwaves of the ’70s weren’t much different from the microwaves of the ’50s, except smaller and cheaper; and microwaves today are pretty much the same as they were in the ’70s, except now they’re “digital”, which just means more buttons and a piercing BEEP instead of a cute ‘ding’ when your food is done.
Some microwaves have fancy timers and auto-cook and special browning technology. That’s all well and good if you want those sorts of things, but if you don’t care, there are only three things that really matter in a microwave oven:
- power: how well and how fast it cooks;
- size: the largest interior with the smallest exterior;
- durability: a microwave should last at least 5 years.
Everything else is just microwavable gravy. Nowadays, you don’t even have to forego the turntable and buttons to get a reasonable microwave. This Sharp R-305KS has 1100W of cooking power, 1.0 cubic feet inside, a 12.6 inch diameter carousel, and a stainless steel finish. A perfectly reasonable countertop microwave for $100 (and about $25 to ship a 35-pound appliance).
2 Responses to “Microwave: Sharp R-305KS”
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Curious why the microwave on reasonablegoods is 100 bucks when your microwave and others sell for 20 bucks ? I bought ours for 30 and it seems fine. I had to have a matching microwave with the rest of the kitchen so it had to be black and silver metal. But anyway…..
Hi Jon
Basically because most reasonable people expect to spend about $100 on a new microwave. We actually replaced our $30 one for a $100 one because we wanted something more powerful and a little larger, which I think is what most people want from the start. Also it was important to pick something with a decent track record - a lot of the $20 type are off-brands or models which aren’t evaluated very much if at all.
But certainly there are a lot of low-cost microwaves out there that perform perfectly well, especially considering the price! The microwave we picked is not the best, nor is it the cheapest. It is just supposed to be reasonable.
Beth