My 11 year old Panasonic lost its light 2 weeks ago, at 11 years and otherwise has not missed a beat. The light is a minor part but as Choice noted in the guide the lights can be expensive relative to the value and future life expectancy of an 11 year old appliance ($25+ to hold ‘the one’ in my hand!). I passed the microwave on to someone happy to have it.
After looking at the LGs I saw the time set ‘feature’ attributed to LG is how they design - eg need to reset the time and it requires a power cycle. That put me off. Then I read the Choice review comments, productreview, and other sites, and the numbers of comments about LG reliability put me off. A consistent one was the apparent fragility of the ‘switches’ in the doors. One has to wonder why, but design it like that they did.
Now OT, serendipitously The Good Guys had ‘the’ Panasonic of interest on sale. It was not recommended in the Choice review (those listed above and below it were!) but the details looked perfect for us and comments and reviews everywhere were very favourable. We have had it for 2 weeks and if as reliable as the old one, it is and will remain a fabulous product. Accepting some evaluation bits are subjective, we do not agree with some of the negatives in the review while some are right on the mark.
Our biggest gripe is that the ‘text menu’ selections on the panel have variations that are only displayed as numerics; for example categories (eg button labelled melt & soften) have multiple sub-settings (melt & soften -> chocolate, butter, cream cheese, and ice cream) that only display as numeric programs (1, 2, 3, 4) and you need the reference book or keep a ‘cheat sheet’ handy until/unless you learn the ones you use often enough. Panasonic saved a few dollars on the display at the expense of usability.
