If you’re shopping for a new microwave, your first concern is probably performance. The best blenders make silky smoothies; the best toasters can brown your bread in a single cycle. The best microwaves probably heat your food evenly or better, right?
After thoroughly investigating microwave performance, we’ve discovered the answer is no. We microwaved marshmallows, mashed potatoes, rice, and Lexan polycarbonate. We also disassembled a few microwaves and swapped the magnetrons to test our hypothesis (a dangerous task we don’t suggest you attempt at home). But that’s not all we did: if you want to know more about what we tried and our conclusions, you can read our R&D article.
In the end, there is no significant difference between microwaves when it comes to heating food evenly. None of them are that good at it, and the heating performance depends on what you’re heating, how much of it there is, and the container you’re using. By the way, this includes inverter microwaves. We looked into the latest microwave technology and found that it offers no improvement over the standard old microwave, despite what the manufacturer might be advertising. If you want to know more, check out our investigation into inverter microwaves.