Panasonic 1100 Watt Genius Microwave NN-SD69LS Review

Panasonic 1100 Watt Genius Microwave NN-SD69LS Review

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Takeaway: Heats food fast but has a learning curve.

The microwave measures 21” wide, 11.5” tall, and 16” deep, though you should leave a few extra inches to the wall for proper ventilation. There is about a ½” gap from the bottom of the unit to the countertop. Inside you’ll find setup instructions, manual, and accessories. You’ll need to remove all the blue tape from the unit over the coupling, door release button, and interior of the door panel. Then place the turntable ring and glass tray inside, ensuring it engages with the coupling in the center.

When you plug the unit in, you can set the weight units to metric or English by pressing in the dial. Then press stop/reset to confirm the selection. To set the clock, press the cooking timer/clock button twice and the colon on the screen will start flashing. Use the dial to change the time, turning clockwise to increase the time and counter-clockwise to decrease it. Not that the clock is 12-hour format only and there’s no indicator for AM or PM. Aslo, the time only increments in one minute increments, no matter how fast you turn the dial, so setting the clock can be somewhat tedious. This is unfortunate as the time setting is lost when the unit is unplugged or the power goes out requiring you to set the time again. Once the correct time appears on the screen, press the clock button to save the setting. To lock the controls, press the dial three times in a row and a horizontal line will appear above the key icon. This prevents the use of any of the microwave functions until it is unlocked by pressing the stop button 3 times.

You can modify the power level for the microwave by pressing the power level button. P10 would be full power, press the button again to decrease by 10 percent and so on down to P1. When your desired power level is displayed, turn the dial to set the amount of cook time. The increments are 5 seconds up to 1 minute, then the increments change to 10 seconds from 1-5 minutes, 30 seconds from 5-10 minutes, 1 minutes up to 30 minutes, and thereafter 5 minute increments up to a max of 90 minutes or 30 minutes at max power level.

The max power of this microwave is 1100 Watts. Here, I’m steaming a bag of frozen corn, so I just select my power level, choose the amount of time, then press the dial to start operation. Pretty standard stuff. At the end of the program the microwave will beep 5 times. Alright so this doesn’t seem hot enough, so this time I’ll press the quick 30 seconds button and then press in the dial. And you can add an additional thirty seconds using that button while it is running, if you need to. If you need to stop it early, press the stop key and reset to clear the timer. Now it looks done.

This microwave also has multi-stage cooking. So for example, I can set to unit cook at power level 10 for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, then add a kitchen timer of 2 minutes following that programming to allow the food to rest before the end of programming alert goes off. When I hit start now, the first stage of the programming starts, but after that’s done, the second stage, the 2 minute timer begins rather than the end of programming beeps. That’ll happen after the timer runs out. You can program up to 3 different stages including a delayed start, cooking for different periods of time at different power levels, keep warm, and resting time. So for example, if I want to heat something on high for 3 minutes, rest for 5 minutes, and then heat again at 50% power for another 2 minutes, I can select all those steps in order upfront before hitting start, and it will complete those in order on after another.

When reheating food, you may want to use the one-touch sensor reheat feature which uses sensors to track the moisture and humidity of your food, rather than manually selecting power level and time, to determine when your food is hot. If you find that it doesn’t produce the results you want, you can increase or decrease the cooking time when using the sensor by 10 or by 20%, though you do have to make this selection each time you use this mode. You also won’t know exactly how long the mode will run for, which can make planning around the reheating time tricky, although it will start a countdown when there are only 30 seconds left.

For folks who like to cook in the microwave, there’s a one-touch sensor cook button with 10 different pre-set common food types like frozen pizza, rice, and pasta. Simply select this mode then choose a setting number according to your food type. The ""sensor cook"" numeric key is printed on a reference sticker on the inside of the door and also appears in the manual with additional instructions on how to best utilize each setting. Again, you won’t know exactly how long the cook time will be in advance, though you can adjust the time by the same 10 or 20% up or down.

There is also an auto-defrost button that only requires that you enter the food weight, up to 6.6 lbs or 3 kg based on the setting you chose when you plugged the microwave in. For English measurements, you’ll have to convert the ounces portion of the weight to the pound decimal equivalent. Some foods may require you to turn or flip them part way through the defrost programming, and the microwave will pause and beep once to alert you when it’s time to do so.

Overall, the microwave performs well, efficiently heating my food evenly throughout. It did take a little getting used to getting the timing right as this model is slightly more powerful than our last microwave. It’s also easy to clean the interior with a quick wipe down of a damp cloth, though I always use a microwave safe cover to reduce food spatter. Setting everything with a dial versus a numeric keypad is a bit cumbersome though, and backlighting for the controls would have been nice since you can’t read the labels in the dark.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: Panasonic 1100 Watt Genius Microwave NN-SD69LS [Affiliate Link]