Portable Induction Cooktop, Countertop Burner 1800W Silver 9600LS

I owned a Tramontina induction hot plate for several years before it recently stopped working. It was excellent for searing meat especially steaks, and good for only a few other tasks because the temperature control was crude. This DUX unit, by comparison, is fantastic. What a great improvement! It seems all these less expensive induction hot plates, including this one, control cooking temperature by cycling the power on and off as opposed to controlling the induction coil current. Most of them offer a pan surface that alternates between too hot and too cold . This DUX unit has somehow overcome this problem by using much finer control of the duty cycle. The result is vastly improved temperature control and an induction hot plate that is useful for more than just boiling water or searing meat. The Dux is well designed and very nice looking. This is without any question a best buy. I got a "used" one in a box that had been opened at a nice discount. Could not tell it from a brand new one. Unless you need a 220V unit for use with much larger pots and pans, get this one. Remarkably it will control well all the way from blazing hot to warm at approx. 125 deg F. It has a useful timer that goes up to 10 hours and shuts the unit off when the time is up. This DUX unit is far more useful than competing induction hot plates because of its good temperature control, very wide range of settings and timer. It could be the heat source for a fine crockpot substitute. Of course, as with all of these less expensive induction hot plates, you will want to learn to control the temperature indirectly using the numeric settings that control the duty cycle. This one goes from 0.5 to 10 in 0.5 increments giving you a total of twenty settings. The Dux can be made to read out temperature directly but the reading will only be approximate, and may be quite inaccurate in some situations. This in no way affects the usefulness of the Dux however. If temperature is critical, use an "instant" read thermometer. One of the big surprises is that you can make Hollandaise sauce directly without a double boiler if you have the right utensil.. For example, the 12 cm Barazzoni belly shaped milk pot with heavy wire handle is perfect for this purpose. Its base is only 9 cm which is wide enough to let the DUX top know there is a pot on it, so it won't shut itself off, but small enough to fit mostly within the central circle of the Dux. To make a one egg yolk Hollandaise, for example -- something not easy to do directly on a gas or electric range without using a double boiler-- put one cold egg yolk and 4-5 Tbs of cold butter in chunks into the pot all at the same time! The butter can even be frozen! Put the pot dead center on the Duxtop and set it to a low setting "1". You can tinker with the heat a little by moving the pot slightly off center and then back to center as needed, or lifting it, something you can't do with most competing units without having to reset the controls. Whisk until the butter is incorporated and then season the sauce in the usual way. This goes very fast, about a minute or two. This is the easiest anyone is ever going to make a perfect hollandaise sauce. Since reviewing this duxtop, I had a chance to use the beautifully sleek induction cooktop sold by IKEA. The IKEA unit is about half the price, however it lacks fine control of cooking temperature (10 settings versus 20 available on the Duxtop Model 96xx) resulting in significantly more coarse temperature control and a very noticeable cycling between on and off. Furthermore the IKEA unit, as do most other brands, shuts of quickly if the cooking utensil is lifted from the surface and stays off until manually reset, whereas the Duxtop, while it also shuts off to protect the unit, will restart without changing its settings when the cookware is placed back in contact with the surface within a minute or less. Quite often one needs to lift a pan to flip its contents, or for even finer heat control. Having used this Duxtop for a while now, I can't say enough good things about it, it is truly a remarkably well designed and extremely functional induction hot plate for home use.. I noticed another review mentioned that they like another brand of induction hotplate better because it boiled water, by their test, 20 seconds faster than the Duxtop. I need not point out how absurd this is. Twenty seconds difference over 4 minutes will result from small differences in the amount of water or the precise positioning of the pan. There is no statistical difference between the time to boil water between these two hot plates. You'd have to repeat this test many times under careful control to have any chance of detecting any real difference in the time to boil water. Incidentally, none of these 1800 watt induction hot plates will boil substantial amounts of water significantly faster than many conventional, natural gas stoves. That's not where an induction cooktop has an edge over a good gas range. The Duxtop is better at controlling both time and temperature than a gas stove and it both heats and cools the surface of a pan far more rapidly. All induction cooktops, even the lousy ones, will get a pan surface blazing hot very fast on their top setting and are superior for searing meat, but do this outdoors unless you have efficient kitchen stove ventilation, because there is going to be smoke, and lots of it. The only place where the top setting should ever be needed is in bringing water to a boil quickly. The high heat of vaporization of water gives some protection to the cooking unit. If you want to shorten the life of the induction hotplate, use it at the top setting (10) on a dry pan for extended periods! In searing meat a setting above 8 is not needed. This is undoubtedly why when one selects the boil function on the Duxtop it automatically sets the power level to 10 and automatically sets the timer to 10 minutes; yet another wise protective feature of the Duxtop that competing units do not have. Another big advantage induction cooktops have over any range with an open flame is that a paper towel can safely substitute as a pan lid to trap splatters of moisture and fat while letting steam escape. This arrangement can be used in combination with a lid, which will trap both splatters and steam. Many meats nowadays come pumped full of salt solutions,e.g., most bacon brands. These meats, when fried in an open pan, will create a mess of fat spatters. If a lid is used, steamed rather than browned meat results. Induction cooking solves these problems. Bacon, for example, is as easily prepared, and without creating a mess, on the Duxtop as it is in a microwave by substituting a paper towel for a pan lid. Nothing browns meat faster or more conveniently than an induction cooktop, and there is no mess to clean up!. All in all this is a remarkably good induction hot plate, and is perhaps the first inexpensive induction hot plate for home use to give highly satisfactory temperature control over a very wide range. It brings an inexpensive, portable home unit very close to the control one previously had to pay far more to achieve. In this sense, this appears to be an appliance that breaks new ground that all other home-use induction hotplates will be forced to emulate. We can think of the Duxtop as bringing to the serious home cook what was previously available only in professional or high-end home kitchens. Like the iconic Kitchenaid Mixer that brought professional orbital mixing action to home cooks, this 96xx series of Duxtops appears to me to be the first inexpensive induction cooktop to give professional quality induction temperature control. The only difference you are likely to experience between this unit and one costing far more is the size of the pans and the volume of liquids that it can handle. In most cases this duxtop unit will be sufficient for cooking four to six servings using most standard sized pots and pans. You can successfully use somewhat larger pans up to the width of the unit if you use a lower power setting and allow more time for conduction to even out the pan surface temperature. The only possible improvement I would like to see would be one still lower power setting of say 0.25. That could be even more useful for fermentations such as making of creme fraiche in a bain marie. The present model goes down to a still amazing and very useful 0.5. Yes, you can melt chocolate at the 0.5 lowest setting, but keep your eye on it and stir. After using this thing daily for a few months, I am still amazed at what it can do and how well it does it! edit 2020: After daily use for 9 months haven't changed my mind. A beautifully engineered product. Will be the standard against which all competitors must compete. And the price remains amazingly low for this kind of quality and function. One of the best products for the money I have ever purchased. edit sept. 2020: Oh my goodness, is this thing ever great! Now I hardly ever use my otherwise great Bosch range's gas cook top. For those in the Southern part of the U.S. that make gumbo regularly, this duxtop is a fantastic roux maker because of its great temperature control. It will make it possible for even an amateur chef to achieve an almost black roux without burning it. Look up Chef Paul Prudhomme's method in his cookbook. Use an enameled, cast iron, dutch oven. Edit: After 19 Months of daily use, still perfect in every way. Edit: I continue to be impressed with the spectacular engineering that went into this product. I use it daily, seldom using my Bosch gas stove top. Beware of imposters that look similar but do not offer the all-important 20 levels of heat control, a 10-hour timer and also permit a pan to be lifted from the surface with the unit operating without having to reset the controls (very useful feature!). I have learned that the Duxtop has a number of circuit and heat protection features that are only evident after much use. What a great induction cooktop this is! Edit Mar 2023: Approaching four years now of daily use. Still functions like brand new and looks almost brand new. Edit Mar 2026: Well it finally happened. After six years plus and three meals a day, my wonderful DuxTop has developed a malfunction. My cost comes to ~ $16/year. I am ordering a replacement of course. I can't think of anything I ever purchased that has has proved to be a better buy than this marvelous DuxTop induction hot plate. I'd give it ten stars if I could.

We got this induction burner to try out induction cooking and see if it could be a viable replacement for our propane gas stovetop. We had been seeing a lot of news articles about propane and natural gas leaking cancer-causing chemicals into the house, and we wanted to transition away from using propane anyway because our tank needed to be replaced. The burner is very easy to use, and the instructions were excellent at helping us learn how to cook with induction. My favorite aspect is that the heat level can be selected using specific numbers. When we later looked for built-in induction cooktops, we found that many of them lacked this wonderful feature, so we decided to just continue using this portable cooktop instead of installing one, and bought a second portable induction cooktop from this same brand, which we also love. There are a few downsides which were not enough of a big deal to us to outweigh the benefits: As other reviews mention, there is a high-pitched humming noise when the unit is heating up. Some of our family members, particularly children, were greatly bothered by this in the beginning, while adults who don't hear as well noticed it but weren't bothered by it much. The noise pitch and volume seems to vary depending on the type of cookware used--generally, more ferrous materials such as cast iron seem to make less noise, and nonstick pans that just have a layer of metallic surface on the bottom made the most noise. We found it's much more usable with a silicone mat--otherwise the pan can easily slide around on the cooktop, particularly when you're boiling water and it splashes over the sides. There is a slight learning curve to cooking with induction, but as a pretty functional family "cook" who makes just simple dishes, I found it very intuitive. Much of the challenge was that I decided to also learn how to cook with cast iron at the same time, and that also has its own learning curve, which I found to be steeper than cooking with induction. Many people we've shared our positive induction experience with are incredulous that we were okay with buying all new cookware, but we used this as an opportunity to clear out a lot of the cookware clutter from our kitchen. We found we really only ever used a few pans anyway, and we were happy to have an excuse to replace our cookware that had scratches in the nonstick coating, which likely wasn't good for us to keep using anyway. I would highly recommend this induction burner to anyone looking to try out cooking with induction, relatively inexpensively. We've had it for a year, using it several times a week usually, and it has always performed consistently well.

Why did you pick this product vs others?: Let me start by saying I RARELY write a review. But after using this for 5 months, I felt compelled. In brief, all I have to say about this product is "Why did I wait so long to get one???" I love cooking - it is my happy place that takes me away from stresses of work (Bonus: you end up with good stuff to eat in the end). My husband and I have a wonderful gas stove but I was curious about the induction method. After doing some investigation, we were both left breathless at the expense of buying an induction stove/oven unit that would fit the space we have. We weren't willing to spend that kind of money, especially if we really didn't yet have experience working with induction. So I did more homework and learned about Duxtop. Seemed like a bargain and we could test out the technology. A bargain doesn't begin to explain what you get for your money. This unit is AWESOME. I use it far more often than I do my gas stove. It is efficient, works exactly as advertised, the learning curve is immediate. It has a sleek design that looks great, doesn't take up a lot of space, and it works with my cookware. Boiling time is lightning fast, control over cooking speeds is fantastic (there is a lot of control with gas and I was worried about this - turns out that this is nothing to worry about), and gradation of cooking power works well for my purposes. Others have cited that the fan noise is bothersome; there is fan noise but it's not terrible and certainly not a deal-breaker. The cooktop cools very quickly and clean up is easy. After each use, I marvel at how it looks sort of "brand new, out of the box" clean after a simple wipe. My husband and I are still contemplating replacing our gas unit with a full induction unit but that thought is way on the back burner now (see what I did there?) since this inexpensive burner is a staple in our kitchen now. Best of both worlds? I know, I know....gas isn't good for you. But we're using it so less frequently than before ('cept for baking). Bottom line for me: ONE OF THE BEST PURCHASES EVER.

SEE UPDATE BELOW: I got this despite that it has the fewest reviews on Amazon, and it looks like most of them are fake/paid for reviews anyways. I picked it though because the duxtop brand has good reviews and this model has the most temperature settings among the cheaper options, and it has a lower temp range too. I read a few people saying with other ones the lowest setting was still too hot. I figured if I was truly going to replace my stove top I wanted the one with the most flexibility and was willing to pay $30 more for it. It moves up in 20 degree increments or .5 power levels. I've only used it a handful of times, and I'm still just getting used to induction cooking in general. The negatives I've had with it apply to all induction burners in general. The cycling heat on and off to maintain temp really threw me off so I tried to compensate by adjusting temps, which I learned I shouldn't do, just let it do it's thing. And when on full power pretty much all of my pans emit this high pitched ringing noise that really sucks. It seems to only be really bad at full power and acceptable at even some of the higher powers just under full. But boy howdy does that thing heat! Water boils so fast you can't believe it. And you do have really quick control of temperatures. I think I'm going to love it once I figure it out. It'd have to be truly terrible for me to use the electric range though. I recommend giving it a shot. This model has the cleanest interface, no special buttons for sauteing or grilling or whatever they say it's for. That stuff would change from pan to pan and dish to dish, anyways and wouldn't be accurate. The 9600 has a boil button which is always accurate, and a keep warm button which will probably work in most situations. At $100 it was worth it to me, but units at half that price have about 95% of the functionality that you could probably get away with and still be good to go, so it's really up to you. It has the same 6.75" diameter coil set underneath the glass, I checked using a high powered flashlight pointed at it with the lights turned off. I did a test of the lowest temperature of 100 degrees, as that is one feature that sets it apart from others. I put 1 cup of water into a 6 inch cast iron enameled pot at 74.6F and set it on 100 degrees. About 15 minutes later the water was at 77.3F. At a half hour in the water dropped to 76.8F. At 45 minutes I concluded the testing and it came in at 75.7F. I then turned the burner off and just let it sit for 15 more minutes, which brought it to 75.3 degrees. To me, this is a mostly good result in that while not accurate, the unit does have the ability to go to an ultra low temperature and keep it some what consistent to a few degrees, although I did not like the trending downward temps. But since this was the lowest setting, I believe higher powers/temps might achieve a more consistent level. My main concern was to find out if the lowest level was going to be too hot, which it most certainly is not! So I think it could be good for those looking to melt chocolate. (See below edit, I was wrong, not good for chocolate!) In conclusion, if I were just rating this unit compared to others in it's price range, I think I'd give it 5 stars. It's more expensive, but I like the user interface more than other options and the low temp abilities sets it apart. But since I'm rating the unit not only against it's peers but also in it's own right just as an induction burner, it gets 4 stars as I have yet to determine if I can live with the high pitch painful noise at the highest setting, and the temperature regulation of constantly turning on and off and on and off is annoying so far. I hope I will learn to love it though. I'll update in a few months when I really get a chance to delve into it. Oh, and the other guy who rated it 1 star and said you have to mess with the lock button to start it is smoking crack. You hold your finger on the power button (wet or dry, I intentionally tested that) for 3 seconds, the blue screen turns on and then you press the menu button. The unit automatically starts at power level 5. You just have to match sure the pan is on the burner before you start it. UPDATE: I figured out that reading the instructions is a good thing! The temperature mode and the power setting mode do function differently. I was thinking it was just two ways to look at the same heat level, but not true. The temperature mode tries to keep the pan at the temp setting you chose (keep in mind the pan temp will be different than the food temp in the pan!). It sucks at this. This is why I was having so many issues with the power cycling. I redid my before water test, this time at 120F degree setting, and the water immediately spiked to 150F and then throughout the course of 30 minutes would drop to a low of 105F. If you took an average of it's temp over that time it actually might have been pretty dang close to 120F or maybe 130F, but with those highs and lows it would be terrible for any chocolate work or anything you needed even temps for. Now, since I am using the power mode things are waaaay better with the power cycling. It just doesn't do it. I did the water test again, this time with 2 cups of water and I used the ".5" power setting which is the lowest. Over the course of 45 minutes the water ranged from 134F to 138F with fluctuations in between throughout. The first half hour it was usually closest to 135F, but near the end was reading consistently 137F. For this pot that I was using, this means the lowest effective and reliable temperature this cooktop can do is about 135F Degrees. This might still be better than other units out there, but I was hoping for less. But I am fairly happy now that I know the power cycling is mostly an issue with the temp settings and not the power settings. I'm almost certainly only going to be using the power settings from here on out, unless I'm doing a long simmering chili or something with a lot of mass in it to help even the fluctuations.

This. Induction. Element. Is. Incredible. The Experience(tm): (Feel free to skip down to my TL;DR - however there is much to explain, being an induction newbie!) I could not wait to unbox this Induction cook element the moment it was delivered. I spent a casual hour in the kitchen, absorbing the warnings and usage instructions - then going about the unpacking of all of my cookware in the place. After testing all the cookware with a refrigerator magnet - it turns out that the simple magnet test revealed the majority of cookware items would simply work. Boy, Howdy - does this magnificent little machine WORK. As advertised, it puts more energy efficiently, spot on right where it is needed; right into the cookware itself. Heat changes/power output/temperature control is *instantaneous*. It literally went from zero to sixty in less than half the time and with a 1/4 less energy to heat water for coffee/tea in the microwave. In fact, it takes 5 minutes for my 1,200 Watt over-the-range microwave to heat up 16oz of water to a rolling boil to brew a hefty double dose mug of coffee. This element used less energy and time to get there, bringing a completely full (9 cups) classic stove top stainless percolator to a complete brew, then kept it warm to settle the grinds out and pour - at a speed that left the microwave in it's dusty wake. Let alone actually using the stove top percolator on a ceramic electric range. (That takes upwards of 20 minutes and you have to watch that you don't overcook and sour the coffee) That said, I made a guilty pleasure Black bean & Dirty Rice 'n' sausage gumbo. In a 4qt stainless encapsulated base pot, I seared and mashed up the sausages. Once browned, they were drained of fats. The unattended Duxtop at first paused all energy output with a "Pot" warning, but restarted the moment the pot was returned to the element. Same, last temperature settings. Into that, went the measure of water, the beans (from cans) veggies and seasonings. Starting with frozen veggies, I expected to linger around to get back to a boil. No - she was "rolling" within 3 minutes on *medium power heat*. I covered it all up, then went to "Temperature mode" to let it simmer the veggies tender enough to launch the rice. Setting it at 200*F and covering it for the simmer - things got weird. Because it was now cooking to temperature, it's *IDLE* - waiting for the temperature to naturally decrease. There was absolutely no simmer/boil action going on at all. Which confusing me - but then occurred to me that there is a lot of latent heat in classic, electric coil cook top surfaces that would perpetuate a boil/simmer between thermostat/burner changes. As I was about to touch the controls to set it back into power mode - it switched on again, brought everything to a simmer again. Then it switched off - halting the simmer. But as it progressed, latent heat in that thick, encapsulated bottom Stainless pot kept it gently, constantly simmering after just a few minutes. At that time, I set the timer for the rice and walked away. It shut off as programmed after sounding a series of beeps you can hear across the house. I turned it on again in "Keep Warm" mode, leaving the lid on it canted to thicken the juicy-dirty-rice-n-black-bean brew as I cleaned kitchen. Every grain, every bean, every diced up veggie and sausage bit came out stick free, plump and tender. Even with my most careful watching over my Ceramic-Electric range, one gets stuck on grains or worse, the bottom singes so very slightly with the black bean sauce. Okay, the highlights for our TL;DR crowd and bullet points: The Good: With appropriate "Induction" compatible/ready/made cookware, this thing is a beast. Unrivaled performance due to extreme efficiency. It literally drives power into the cookware directly to heat your foods. None of the burner to air to pot to food nonsense like gas and conventional electric coil or deep infra-red systems. No residual heat to overcook or scorch foods. When it's on, it heats, when it's off, it's cooling. It kinda looks good even sitting there by itself. It has a definitely more modern styling and shape that's appealing. (To me at least) The sloped front facing display and control panel not only makes for easy control adjustment, overhanging cookware will not erratically bump those control settings. Duxtop surface and pot are no hotter than the pot temp itself. There's no cool down waiting for cleanup when the unit finishes it's shutdown and cool off cycle. Sure, it's going to burn you if you immediately go poking about with your fingers the second it stops cooking - but only the heat of the pot itself conducts a small amount of residual heat to where it was directly sitting on the Duxtop surface before. There is NO cool-down waiting for the better half of an hour after using a gas or electric-ceramic stove. Because spills on the surrounding Duxtop element aren't scorched on like in gas or electric - it literally wipes clean with a moist towel in seconds. Extreme efficiency also means less utility bills - it puts more energy, straight into cookware directly. No wasted heat is spent into the air, handles - or worse, you. As such, the kitchen and home stays much cooler so, no running up the energy bills on an overworked AC unit. The Duxtop 9600 series features all glass/ceramic surfaces, even on the touch sensitive pads. No membrane "buttons-go-click" pads to eventually wear out. Portable. Electric. Safe. Eco-friendly - no fumes, toxic gasses or excessive CO2, it goes places tucked in a bag - No open flames and even if accidentally unattended - overtemp shutoff is there to help. If you do not specify a timer setting, it shuts itself off after 70 minutes of active cooking. Lockout control keeps curious fingers and interlopers at bay. Makes for quick, in use wipe-up cleaning a breeze, but avoid the power button. An erroneous touch registered there will shut the unit off immediately. The power button is always active despite having the lockout function engaged. The BAD: You may discover that whole kitchen heart transplant may be needed. Not all materials and metals work. No purely ceramic pots, no glass, no copper or aluminum. A Revereware copper clad pot I had with stainless insert didn't detect or work on the Duxtop. If you do not check cookware with a magnet, the Duxtop will sense if cookware is incompatible and reject it. Simply lay it on the inductor surface and if the "Pot" warning persists, it's a no go. Cast Iron and enameled cast iron: They work the best. But allow time for it's heavier mass to slow warm on a low setting before elevating to cook temperatures. You could warp pots, Dutch Ovens, skillets, fry pans if you go thermonuclear hot out of the gate. Iron is heavy. Cook within weight limits of the element. (25lbs max on the surface) Cast iron is sometimes rough and unfinished on the bottom. To avoid scratching or breaking surface - pick up and gently place the cookware. Do not drag, slide or jostle it about while using the inductor - treat it with the same kindness as you would if you dare to cook with iron on any glass/ceramic range. Massive performance = Massive Power: The Duxtop draws 1800watts @ 120volts AC when gong full speed Lvl 10 power control. Put it on a dedicated 15AMP line and breaker with no other appliances. Preferably on a 20Amp service branch, but many homes built in the last 50 years typically have all 20Amp branch circuit service in the kitchen. For peak power usage, I still caution to make sure no other devices share the same wiring string of outlets. Somewhat noisy operation: The induction element is air cooled via a small computer style fan. It keeps the power drive electronics and surface area cool as it works. But it's on the second the unit starts. There's no modulation range at all no matter what power or temperature setting you use. It continues to run for 2 minutes after the unit is switched off. LET IT COOL and shut down when the cycle is in use. After the fan stops, then you can unplug it. Always ON power consumption: When the unit is powered off and cooled, leaving it plugged in still drives some internal components and a Big Red(tm) standby light. This parasitic drain of power is substantial. The manual recommends unplugging the unit between uses. The UGLY!!! The operation manual in no less than 3 places mentions a warning for pacemaker patients. So be very cautious of that. Cosmetics: As such a mirror fine reflective finish on the ceramic it has? It collects smudges and fingerprints very easily - even with clean hands. I find myself wiping it several times a day - but only because - kitty walks across it leaving little pawsies-prints all over it. Mum gets curious, reads the manual - picks it up out of it's spot beside the stove, looks it over, puts it down. Now there is mumsy-pawsies-prints all over it. LOL! Resonance noise: With it modulating power levels, especially in "Temperature Mode" it can emit a sliding scale squeal. You can hear it sweep through frequencies along with a slight hum. This appears to happen more with thin wall stainless, blued carbon steel and to a lesser degree - encapsulated stainless pots with an aluminum heat spreader sandwiched in the bottom. Cast iron does not make any noise at all that I can detect. Cookware Size & Type: Despite passing the magnet test or "certifications" on pot labels - as you vary sizes, composition, manufacturers, characteristics of heating and spread of that heat can vary very wide and wild. Thin walled carbon steel pans and woks can get extreme hot spotting. Keep stirring your food if you utilize thin and steel based pans w/o a cladded-in heat spreader in the bottom. Too small of a utensil, despite being induction ready - may not activate the element. I find anything under 5 inches diameter to be useless. Likewise, too large of a cookware set will have just a localized heat spot just in the middle 6", especially if it's a thinner bottomed piece. It's efficiency and raw power can see you and the Duxtop with a carbon black, perma-bonded sample of your last meal permanently welded on your wide and thin carbon steelies. At the price of entry, this is a rather refined piece of equipment. Precise (In mine at least) thermal controls and power levels took time time to tinker with, but I got fabulous results on my first try. Time and energy savings due to just the inherent nature of induction cooking is all there, in spades. Are there better units with more features? Of course! All will see you parting with your wallet to the tune of $300+ more. The decently granular power and thermal settings will get the most of your basic heavy lifting done simply. Lesser, more inexpensive units will all assuredly blast a 2qt pot into the Ionosphere full of water and boil just fine - yet the finesse of stable power and thermal controls aren't as good. There is also quality and durability issues there. Please, I implore you spend the extra $50~70 and grab this unit. Firm construction and materials will likely see it last very well in my home setting. I couldn't justify the purchase of an "Industrial grade" Duxtop or offerings from other manufacturers for the cash as this was my first time getting my feet wet in induction cooking. For the low-grade price tag, you get a pretty damn good upper-middle grade product with a 2 year warranty smothered atop of it like a warm, smooth chocolate sauce.... ...Which apparently, with excellent lower end power controls? This Duxtop can *make*. ;> I'll stop typing now - I love induction cooking, though I was suspicious of it before. And my first, entry level purchase into the space was fortunate. I did months of research and reading. Duxtop 9600xx series is a great beginner setup, more than decent overall quality and will not break your piggy bank. Ok, not really. If you don't have a lick of Induction ready/compatible cookware, there's going to be a bump to get over. But grandmaw's rusty cast iron can be scrounged up, cleaned out and re-seasoned for use here. This is a great stop gap device to introduce yourself and learn too; right before you pull the trigger on a kitchen renovation and you're on the fence about modernized Induction cook tops.

First let me point out that induction cooktops from different manufacturers ALL heat at different rates so please stop saying dumb things like: "My other (insert other brand here) induction cooktop doesn't burn my (whatever) on 50% power setting but this brand does so that means this one isn't as good." That is actually ass-backwards because the more powerful one is better, you just have to figure out the correct power level for whatever you're cooking with your specific pots/pans. The reason no induction cooktop has (or should have) a temp readout is because the temp will NOT be constant with different size/shape pots/pans therefore a temp readout is useless since a small saucepan will appear to get hot faster than an 8qt stock pot and the actual temp could vary by more than 100 degrees on the same power setting. The only way for a temp gauge to be accurate is for the induction cooktop to have a thermal probe INSIDE the pot/pan and it would also need the programming to adjust the cooktop based on the thermal probe's temp reading to keep it as close to the selected temp as possible. A sous vide machine such as the popular Anova does exactly this and can regulate the waterbath temp to stay within 1/10th of 1 degree of the desired temp setting. WIthout the thermal probe inside the pot/pan a temp gauge is pointless as it's literally just guessing the temp which obviously isn't accurate at all. Once you understand how the power levels work and understand that "power level" has nothing to do with "temperature measurement", you can use trial and error to figure out which power settings work best for each thing you cook with your particular cookware. The Duxtop 9600LS's designer was pretty smart in that he made power levels from 0.5 through 5.5 to be 80W intervals for finer heating adjustment, and power levels 5.5 to 10.0 to be 100W intervals since most of the finer adjusting is only needed at the lower power settings. Any setting above 6.0 is usually just for maintaining a boil or bringing your pan up to heat as fast as possible so fine adjustments are not critical for the higher settings. Most other brands have fewer intervals, or pulse the power on and off at longer intervals which causes more burning becuase they may pulse 800W power for 10 seconds then turn off for 10 seconds to maintain the equivalent of power setting "3.0" but that 10sec blast of 800W power is long enough to burn delicate foods like cream/sauces/eggs/fish/etc. This unit has finer power interval adjustments and also has shoter power pulses than most other brands so setting 3.0 will use 500W power and pulse on for something like only 6 seconds and off for 3 seconds. Both methods keep the food at about the same temp overall, but the heat fluctuation is much greater with other brands compared to this Duxtop 9600LS which tries to keep the temp fluctuation to a minimum to avoid burning delicate foods. These are features that almost no one ever thinks of, and they aren't even listed in the description of any induction cooktop but they are CRITICAL to the proper cooking of a lot of different dishes! I've used the (discontinued) model from YouTube's Binging With Babish, the NuWave 1300W 2016 model, and NuWave 1800W Platinum 2017 model, and this is easily the best of all of them. The only better one I've used was a popular commercial $800 model used in restaurants that I can't remember the manufactuer's name of. It was definitely the best but I can't justify spending 8x the price of this one just for my home cooking...unless I was rich. That's why I bought 2 of these to put next to my 4-burner gas stove which allows me to cook multi-course meals all at the same time MasterChef style!

What do you do if you live in a pre-war NYC apt with outdated electrical wiring and you want to move away from using your gas stove because of all the toxic fumes it generates? Do you consider the new Charlie induction stove, priced at $6k? Do you consider doing takeout from now on, priced at, well, more than $6k? No. You look at induction burners like these that can plug into a 110 outlet just fine. I made a decision to stop using my gas stove and this was the solution, along with my Breville Smart Oven (for baking). I got this induction cooktop because it was the most highly rated single burner of its kind on Amazon. I've used it many times now, and it is definitely one of the easiest things to use and to get used to. It has a high-pitched whine that you'll eventually get used to, and the cooking levels are something you will have to experiment with for awhile for all the types of cooking that you do. I'm impressed with it and wonder why I didn't get it sooner, frankly. One of the biggest things you will need to adjust to is having only one burner size, so to speak. Ideally, your pots and pans should be no more than 10 inches across at the bottom for optimal cooking. The magnetic coil has a diameter of 6 inches across, so that means the larger the pot/pan, the more stirring you will need to do to keep the food, especially outside of that diameter, at a consistent temperature throughout. I find myself needing to be more mindful about how I'm cooking the food than ever before, but this is an ok tradeoff for avoiding all the issues with gas cooking. I also had to give up some of my more complicated recipes that require multiple burners being used at once. That was easy enough to do, although quite sad. The only thing stopping me from buying a second burner for cooking is that they are each 1800 watts, so again, outdated electrical wiring foils my plans. You probably have more options though.

I purchased this cooktop because it got the highest recommendation from New York Time's Wirecutter, which has been testing induction cooktops for years, and because it seemed like a good way to dip my toe into the induction cooking pool for not a lot of money. It also provided a quick and easy way to reduce the use of my gas stove. Cooking with gas can have a detrimental effect on indoor air quality and indeed personal health, something most of us have not taken as seriously as we should. And as the electricity grid becomes increasingly powered by renewables like wind and solar, phasing out all use of fossil fuels in favor of electric appliances will become increasingly desirable. Thus I wanted to get a glimpse of what my cooking future might look like a few years from now, given that I've long believed that gas provides the best cooking experience. It's interesting how admirable qualities in an appliance can be swamped by irritations -- something every product designer should take seriously. For me the biggest irritation by far is that the unit beeps continuously whenever it's turned on but without an appropriate (ie., ferrous) pot or skillet positioned on the cooktop. The beep is not loud, but it is insistent, and few things irritate me more than being nagged by my machines, especially when it's so needless. (I turn off the sound on my microwave for this very reason. I'll remove my food when I FEEL LIKE IT, thank you very much.) And having become sensitized, I have an increasingly negative reaction every time the beeping happens. That's not the kind of relationship you want with your cooktop. Perhaps I should get some counseling. The nagging happens every morning when I make my coffee. I heat my water kettle on the cooktop, and remove the kettle to slowly pour hot water over my ground coffee. The cooktop starts its hissy-fit the instant the kettle is removed. No pot! It beeps. And beeps. And beeps. Oh, the horror of not having a pot in place. The idea for me is to pour some hot water over the grounds, then return the kettle to the cooktop while the coffee drips, then come back to pour some more water, and so forth. But during the pouring the cooktop is having its mini-nervous breakdown about the missing pot. There's a palpably emotional insistence in both of us, the cooktop and me, to HURRY with the pouring and get that kettle pack onto the thing, to make the thing stop beeping. This is all so unnecessary. Part of the rationale for beeping might be to remind the novice user of what kind of cookware will and will not work. Glass cookware, for example, won't work. Non-magnetic stainless won't work either. Cookware to which a magnet will stick does work. The cooktop detects whether induction-capable cookware is in position, and notifies the user when it is not. On the LCD display, for example, which flashes Pot! when one is missing. The novice will soon learn what cookware is compatible with his unit. Even without the beeping, a good clue about incompatible cookware is that the cookware does not get hot. The blinking display is another reasonable clue. The incessant beeping is not. Once the user has figured out what cookware does and doesn't work, the beeping and even the flashing display serves no useful purpose, other than to tell the user what he can plainly see for himself by glancing at the cooktop and noticing the absence of a pot. No pot? I know, you idiot machine, I'm holding that pot RIGHT NOW while I make my coffee. It's important to understand that the absence of a pot poses no safety issues whatsoever. The cooktop itself does not get hot in any case, because induction only produces heat IN THE METAL STRUCTURE OF THE PAN, not on the surface of the cooktop. And anyway, the cooktop won't energize the induction mechanism without an appropriate pot being in place, so literally nothing is going on in the absence of a pot. Everything is cool, literally and metaphorically. In that respect an induction stove is safer than either gas or conventional electric. Did I mention that I very much dislike gratuitous beeping? But to be clear, a discreet for the purpose of auditory feedback during the operation of the controls, such as when adjusting the cooking level, is fine. What else? Well, the actual active induction zone seems smaller than I thought it would be. It appears to be about 6 inches in diameter. You can readily see this by placing an inch or so of water in a large diameter skillet and bringing it to a boil. A tight circle of boiling water develops about 6 inches across in the center of the pan, with not much happening outside that circle. If all you're doing is boiling a liquid, such as when I make my coffee, this is not a problem, because convective forces keep the liquid mixed and at a uniform temperature. But it might be a problem for other kinds of cooking. The effect is interesting to observe. While I certainly didn't expect uniform edge-to-edge heating on a 12-inch skillet, this smallish induction zone came as a bit of a surprise. And it demonstrates how tightly concentrated is the induced energy, so much so that it can somewhat overwhelm the ability of even a high quality skillet to evenly distribute the heat outside that induction zone. By contrast, a gas burner has a flame that spreads out over the entire bottom of the pan and can even go up the sides, which results in a larger area of uniformity for more even heat across the entire pan. For that reason the gas burner will almost certainly cook more evenly, even though the induction element is more energy efficient because all the energy used to produce heat is induced in the pan itself. A couple of further comments on this. First, this is a PORTABLE cooktop. I have no experience with the capabilities of built-in induction cooktops. They might do a much better job of handling a variety of pan sizes. Something to investigate. And it might be argued that a portable cooktop is really only intended to be used with smaller pans anyway. All that said, it seems to me that a somewhat larger induction zone -- say, 8 inches -- would be a big improvement, and would be more suited to most of the cookware I use. Another thing that surprised me a little is that energy output (ie, heat control) is produced by pulsing the induction element. One thing that's said about induction stoves is that the temperature change is instantaneous, similar to gas. And it is. Maybe even more so, since with gas the heat must be conducted from outside the pan. But the heating output of this cooktop is controlled by in effect turning the induction element on and off over appropriate intervals to maintain the desired temperature or heat level. You can hear that happening when you're boiling water at reduced power: The boiling sound starts and stops, starts and stops, starts and stops. I would have thought that the induction element would run continuously, with its power output continuously adjusted according to the desired cooking temperature. This isn't necessarily a criticism. At least, I don't think so. And speaking of sound, this unit is somewhat noisy. That's because it has an internal fan to cool its own electronics while it's running, and presumably also to remove the small amount of heat that is conducted into the cooktop from the bottom of a hot pan. The NYT review warns of this, and also points out that the sound level from the cooktop is no louder than running a kitchen exhaust fan -- which you really should be doing if you're cooking with gas. All this reads like a list of negatives, although I really didn't set out to write a scathing critique. Better maybe to call this product a collection of mostly reasonable tradeoffs, except for the gratuitous beeping, which is an outright design flaw. The build quality certainly seems good. It's really easy to wipe clean. The unit is compact enough to not take up an inordinate amount of counter space, and is easy enough to relocate or put away when it does. It makes it easy to augment your current cooking setup. It's priced low enough to make for a low-risk purchase, and if you find you like the product you might view it as a bargain. It does draw a lot of power, which is a consideration given that it plugs into a standard wall outlet. That means there really oughtn't be too much else on the same electrical circuit while the cooktop is operating. Otherwise you'll find yourself blowing breakers. This unit will use all the capacity of a 15 amp circuit, and three fourths the capacity of a 20 amp circuit. So, then. Do I wish a few things were different? Yeah. Would I buy it again? I think so. Would my rating be higher than 3 stars without the stupid beeping? Absolutely.

This is a great unit for quick and portable cooking needs. I use a 10" cast iron frying pan with it 95% of the time and it heats up and works very well. The heat control is amazing and works as designed. I never have to worry about overheating, it maintains the perfect temperature once the cast iron is heated (takes about 8-10 mins). As a result, my eggs turn out perfectly and the exact same way every time without drying them out or having them stick. It works very well with pots as well. The quick boil and other features are handy. Again, very simple to use. It's also very easy to clean the top and it's nice and light weight for easy storage. Overall, after a few months or almost daily use, I have no complaints. It's a little pricier then the other Duxtop models, but having more heat control is worth it I think, depending on your cooking needs.

Busque en diversas tiendas en México (nunca había tenido una parrilla de inducción). Me decidí comprarla por las reseñas de los otros clientes. Deseaba una parrilla de inducción porque acabo de poner paneles solares en casa. Es fácil de utilizar, me gusta que al cambiar los niveles rápido calienta o disminuye el calor. Tenemos varios meses usándola en casa. Muy rápido calienta en comparación de la estufa y produce menos calor en la casa (útil en los meses de verano). La recomiendo ampliamente. Lo único que no sé es la duración de vida útil de la parrilla, ojala sea mucho tiempo el que funcione.

This is my second induction cooktop and I have used at least 5 brands of induction cooktops. The first one is over 10 years old and still works fine, but needed another. This unit has some real important features: - fan stays on after cooktop turned off - important for long life and to cool cook surface - 20 heat settings - a big deal if you like to cook - thicker electrical cable - thinner cords melt with heavy use at high temperature settings Some of the reviews of this product spoke negatively of the fan in the unit. Compared to other units I've used, this product is quieter and uses the fan more effectively. There's no economical way of getting around a fan in an induction cooktop. Compared to other induction cooktops, this one is just as fast at boiling water and has the same heat pattern. One improvement that would make the product easier to clean is to have a single surface for the cooking surface and the control area. The seam between these two surfaces on this unit will require additional attention for cleaning. This would not stop me from buying another unit, but the change would make it better. There is a good manual. It would be even better if it supported additional languages other than English or at least provided links to a website that offers manuals in different languages. Have only used for a few days, but appears to be a quality product of good value. Time will tell. Update: Have used this everyday since purchase and one thing to be careful of is how easy it is to put the unit in boil mode (highest power for 10 minutes). The buttons on the touch panel can accidentally be activated when moving a hand or arm over the panel.

Muy bueno. Mas fierte que los otros.. Yo compraria dos

Funciona muy bien, para hervir agua para la pasta es mucho más rápido que le estufa de gas. El único inconveniente es que a veces emite un chillido muy agudo casi insoportable, lo bueno es que es intermitente y se quita después de un rato. En resumen , es una gran opción para complementar la estufa de gas.