I went shopping online for the smallest possible microwave overn. I would use it for breakfast at my girlfriend's apartment, for defrosting a frozen bagel or reheating coffee. She did not need a microwave for herself and wanted me to buy something that did not take up much space and looked good. The iwavecube is by far the smallest and best looking microwave I could find. The question was, for 139 dollars, would it do anything?
I'm pleased to report that although the 350 watt microwave takes about 3 times as long to do anything as my 1100 Sharp home microwave, it peforms as it should. I did side by side tests reheating coffee, brewing tea, popping popcorn and defrosting bagels and everything came out great. It just takes a little longer. And you might find the handle of your cup is hotter or the bottom of the popcorn bag a little burned, but you need some excitement don't you?
According to the box, Recommended for personal applications of microwave power.There seemed to be no other very small microwave still available online. Sharp used to make a small dorm size microwave that's cute and blueberry imac-like and can be found on ebay. The iwave is nearly a cube in shape, weighing only 12 lbs, and is less than 11 inches in width. I purchased it from by SkyMall, but the microwave came from the Sharper Image for 130 dollars plus 12 dollars tax and 18 dollars shipping. http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__IW400BLK/nickname__0/childitemflag__false . I created my order at Skymall.com, registered with the site and then did not complete the purchase. In a few days they sent me an email with a 20% off code, so for a total of 139 including shipping, I caved.
I ordered the black model, no other colors were offered, however the photos of the box it claims to come in many fun colors. It's purported to be a quiet, very small microwave you can use at work or in a close quarters like a dorm room or Manhattan shared apartment. It's quieter than a normal microwave, but it's louder than say a desktop computer. A fan comes on a few seconds into cooking and you can hear that. In addition to the 5 beeps that indicate the cycle is finished.
The power is listed as In and out, In 600 watts, Output Power 350 watts. So I am guessing you could compare this to a 350 watt microwave. The 600 is probably misleading. I will compare it to my 1100 watt sharp microwave. The power cord is only a bit longer than 3 feet, similar to my sharp cord.
Sharp dimensions: 20 w x 12 h x 17 d
iwavecube dimensions: 10.5w x 12 h x 10 d
Sharp capacity: 1 cubic foot
iwavecube: .3 cubic feet
Sharp weight 32 lbs
iwavecube 12 lbs
The manual states that the iwavecube is recoomended for single serving microwavable foods and snacks and up to 3 serving size microwave popcorn.
It comes with a metal rack. I guess you can use certain metals in micowaves. There is no carousel or plate inside. There are buttons for automatic settings, one button for coffe, hit it once for an 8 oz cup, twice for a 12 ounce cup. There is a hot sandwich button and a popcorn button.
The recommended cooking time for a 12 oz cup of coffe is 6 minutes! My
Sharp makes a room temperature cup into a steaming hot cup in 1.5 minutes. I did the coffee test and the tea test. See below for the results.
For tea I used room temperature water out of my counter top water filter pitcher. I used about 10 oz of water in a glass mug. To make tea the water does not have to boil but should be very close. At 6 minutes I thought it might boil when I put in the tea bag, but it did not. The water was sufficiently hot for tea, since my My thermometer only goes up to 190 I cannot say how hot, hotter than that. Even after a minute, the water temp was still 185 degrees. It was plenty hot. So was the handle to the coffe cup! With the long cooking times of this microwave, I think the heat has time to affect every part and you should use some protection when removing food.
Tea:
Sharp: 2 minutes. Water began to boil
iwavecube: 6 minutes. not boiling but hot enough.
Bagel defrost:
Sharp: 30 seconds
iwavecube: 1 to 1.5 minutes.
The bagel was still cold after one minute but I was able to cut it. I perfored a second test at 1.5 minutes, and the bagel was all thawed out and easy to slice for the toaster.
reheat coffee:
Sharp: 1 minute
iwavecube: 3 minutes (to 150 degrees f)
heat cold chai from fridge
Sharp: 2.5 minutes
iwavecube: 5 minutes ( to 160f)
room temp water rack test
iwavecube on metal rack room temp 12 oz of water
with rack: 3 minutes (130f)
without rack: 3 minutes (139f)
That rack I think reduces the power of the microwave.
Microwave Popcorn Newmans
Popcorn: 4.5 minutes to pop a 3.5 ounce bag (3 servings) of Newman's Own. The popcorn came out perfect. It could have poopped a little longer to pop all the kernels, but since the bag was already a little burned at the bottom I'm glad I took it out when I did.
I didn't expect this microwave to work. So I am pleasently surprised that it's going to serve my needs just fine. I mainly use the microwave for thawing out frozen bagels and reheating coffee and making tea.
