After 35 years, my trusty Panasonic finally give up and died. Well, actually its only kinda crippled, but its time to take it out back and put it out of its misery.

I used mine daily for a variety of things from defrosting to reheating to simple cooking.

Is there any one model or brand that stands head and shoulders above the rest or are they all more or less the same now?

Panasonic is still one of the best to buy. We had an LG in our old house that was very nice and the Whirlpool we have now is not nearly as good in comparison.

Are you talking about the ones with the inverter tech? I thought these originally had issues.

My parents have had one of the inverter ones for a number of years and no problems other than finding a place to put it as it is quite large.

I bought a GE from Sam's club for around $100 about 8 years ago. No trouble with it so far.

I've been very happy with the two Panasonics we've had. Less happy with GE and Amana, although those were a long time ago.

Funny I just replaced our microwave 3 days ago, our old one was a DCS that matched our oven that I paid $500. for, it only lasted 6 years and we were never that impressed by it. I bought a Panasonic NN-SD978S 2.2 Cubic Feet 1250 Watts Microwave, Stainless Steel from Amazon that I paid $149. for.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003FZF7X2/ref=oss_product.
I've only had it a couple days but so far I'm really pleased. It does a lot more and looks really good.

A quick check of Canadian prices reveals I can get this gem for only $399.

I like the idea of the inverter tech, but there are still a lot of posts about early failure.

We've had three Panasonics over the last five years. You'd think that we'd learn. But when they work, they're good. They look nice, they're reasonably priced, and the features are good.

The first was an over the range model with the exhaust fan. The motherboard died and was serviced and replaced under warranty. We left that one when we moved.

The new one was an in-cabinet model. Smaller box yet more powerful than the last one, and had a larger interior space. It lasted about a month before it started smoking from the right side one day.

Took it in to the repair shop recommended by the retailer, and he said go back to the retailer (Audio Video Unlimited) and get a new one, on us. The didn't have the same model, so we went down about $50 (which they refunded us), and it's been fine now for about a year and a half.

Confidence inspiring, no?

Still, I'd buy another Panasonic if I had to. We use it every single day.

I've had a couple of Panny microwaves(stand alone) through the years, they've been very reliable for me.

Well, Panny it is. I went to a few shops in town today and they had a GE, an LG Panny Panny Panny Panny...

Looks like Panasonic has cleaned up in the Microwave market. Everyone I talks to said buy the Panny.

Hi Fred,

I bought a cheesy off-brand (Emerson)at a Costco in Florida about 15 years ago because it was so cheap (under $100) and it's still working perfectly (unlike my stupid Oppo DVD, which failed after 3 years).

I have a compact Toshiba on my boat that also works well.

Cheers,
Alan

Mmmm, cheesy ...

first one i bought here in N.A. was a Panasonic that lasted me about 20 years. then i bought another make and it stopped working after about 1 year; and it did not heat evenly.
bought another Pana and been happy ever since...

until a couple of years ago, i used to do all my cooking in the microwave, so it was used a lot, even slow cooking 4-5 liters of spaghetti sauce (about 8 hours in all).

Then, my good man, you were either a bachelor, or Jane Jetson.

Could he be Elroy all grown up?

ha, ha!