Find Whirlpool Deals at Lowe’s
What are the basic features?
When it comes to microwave features, it's mostly about exploring the autocooking settings that will make your life easier. Along with that, here are the main features you'll find:
Auto settings:
Beyond defrost, cook, and fresh vegetables, now you can find other preprogrammed settings to cook food items such as popcorn (the microwave item that's most likely to burn), pizza, baked potatoes, frozen dinners, chicken breast, melt/soften (for those nachos?), soup, or sauce, or "add 30 seconds" for one-touch extra heating.
Time and power levels:
All models have standard cooking timers. Some also have a delay start so you can preprogram when to start heating an item. Microwaves cook via wattage--the average microwave offers 650 to 1,300 watts of cooking power. The higher the wattage, the more power you use to heat your food. Most basic models come with 10 power levels.
Child safety lock:
Like most modern appliances, many microwaves now come with a lock or code to prevent children from opening the door.
Racks and more:
It's common for microwaves to come with a rotating turntable to help food cook more evenly, or a sliding rack to make it easier to place dishes into the microwave. Some come with removable racks to cook multiple dishes at once, or they include browning pans.
Noise reduction:
Microwaves can be noisy. If sound reduction is important to you, check out the "sones" rating. The lower the number, the quieter the cooker--with one sone being about as noisy as a running refrigerator and four sones being the equivalent of human conversation.
