I wish the light stayed on with the door open.
Can the annoying beeps be turned off? All microwaves beeps are annoying.
Guilty! I’m the guy who said, as you wrote…my microwave ovens last 3 to 4 years. (Actually, I wrote 2 to 4 years) Nevertheless, this has been my honest finding. Perhaps it’s because my microwaves have always been in a cabinet with a special compartment for the microwave. I thought recently that this may interfere with the ovens ventilation, so I cut some holes in the wall and added an electric ventilator which may extent the oven’s life…we’ll see. It makes little difference to me anyway because Sams Club give me a new microwave if the old one breaks down.
Costco sells the NN-SA651S for $99 brand new, with what essentially amounts to a lifetime warranty.
$95 (including shipping) for a refurb with 90 day warranty is so not a deal it’s sad.
Seriously Woot? That’s the best you can do? You’re slacking off 
My antique one has been in that sort of a space, too, though not with doors that close. And the microwave that’s been in it since 1996 wasn’t brand new when it went in there.
The light in my Panasonic does stay on with the door open. I had to call Panasonic direct to learn that before I bought mine but be sure you give them the model number you are interested in. Not every model does that, unfortunately.
I have owned the “Panasonic NN-T945SF Microwave - 2.2-Cubic Foot” for about 6 years and I honestly love the beast. It’s positively HUGE inside (and out) and, at 1250 watts, it’s faster than almost anything out there short of commercial units. I read some negative reviews on other sites that referred to its reliability and I feel the need to mention that I have had no issues with mine and it has performed like a champ while being used numerous times every day. It packs too many features to detail but the Quick Minute and the Inverter Turbo Defrost are constants around here. I especially like the fact that the Turbo Defrost thaws without cooking the edges. I weigh whatever is frozen and set it at slightly lower than its “scale” weight (I think my scale is off a tiny bit). It tells you when to turn it over and works perfectly every time.
I also like to set the language to French just to confuse friends, LOL!
Note; if I remember correctly, mine was close to $200 brand new.
I don’t know these microwaves but have you tried pressing the popcorn button multiple times? Most microwaves I’ve seen cycle through options: standard, large, small or something similar.
Just as with Hot Air, Microwaves are not the proper way to explode popcorn kernels. ;-D
We went back to the old-fashioned oil-in-pot-on-stove method. While it requires some clean-up, it does not require that much more time.
The trick is thoroughly covering the bottom of the pot (a good solid-bottom pot) with Canola oil, not the miserly 1-3 teaspoons. Pre-heat the oil at medium-high for a bit. Completely coat the bottom with popcorn. Take off burner when popping slows. Add salt. Enjoy.
This method is a bit like ‘deep-frying’ the popcorn. Tastes great with no need to add melted butter.
As I already posted above…
I’ve owned Panasonics for a lot of years and while they tend to make slightly burned popcorn when using the “popcorn” button, there is a very easy solution for this minor problem. Don’t use the “popcorn cycle”, instead just punch in 2 minutes less 10 seconds at regular power and your corn will be perfectly popped.
Don’t mean to be splitting hairs here, but the method of cooking popcorn above is exactly the method used in bag popcorn. You say that they use a miserly 1 to 3 teaspoons of oil, so my question is how do you know that? The ingredient line posted on all packages does not tell you exactly how much oil is use, it only tells you that oil is the second most prominent ingredient in the package. Finally, in my opinion butter is a very important ingredient in popcorn…even the bag corn uses butter flavoring.
@acanarelli, different strokes for different folks on butter. Heated butter is not an attractive odor or flavor to me but it can be added to popcorn cooked in any manner.
The “3 teaspoons” of oil mention had nothing at all to do with microwave popcorn. It came from the bottle of plain popcorn. ('Sorry, just looked - it says 3 tablespoons.) The point is to use Canola oil liberally (one of the few times this word is acceptable).
With the “inverter” system, the system does NOT “pulse” on and off. It actually changes the power level. READ up on it. That is the advantage of Panasonic’s Inverter Technology, it doesn’t simply cycle the magnetron on and off.
To bring popcorn back to the topic of these microwaves, I looked up the manual for the NN-SA651S. It does have selections for different sizes of microwave popcorn bags.
I didn’t know about this feature until someone showed me a couple years ago. So now I’m passing it on.
You can look up the other models on the same site.
With both of my previous Panasonic microwaves, both had problems with the door release button. From reading other owner comments, this seems to be a very common Panasonic flaw. Buyer beware.
I love Panasonic’s inverter line. For $100 (less, actually), expect to get a good number of years out of it, until the door starts flaking out. Then you dispose of it and start again.
BUT HERE’S THE BIG NEGATIVE…
It jams Wi-Fi when it is on. Really.
The two most common complaints I read when researching these was that the light is off when the door is open and that it beeps too quietly. The other main complaint, already mentioned here, is that you really have to push the button to get the door open.
I have the 1.2 ft3 version (I think they use slightly different model numbers for each retailer; my model number is the same as this except for the last character).
I got it a couple of months ago on sale for about $110. It’s my third microwave in twenty-five years, and it’s by far the most powerful. It really cranks.
I have not spent a lot of time with the sensor cooking, because I have not cooking anything on the list except a potato, and that worked. The list stuck behind the door, so you don’t need to find the manual to remember what’s what.
The reheat function works great.
The microwave popcorn I bought is not one of the sizes the popcorn button knows, so through experimentation I use the recommended time minus ten seconds.
Okay - I’m on the “I want one” page but there’s no button to press???
It sold out
Sorry.