The humble microwave is often one of the most-used, convenient appliances in our kitchens.
From warming leftovers to melting butter for baking to reheating that cup of tea that’s been forgotten several times over, we rely on them to make life easier for us.
But microwaves that just don’t do what they’re meant to (or are so confusing to operate that you avoid using them) take up a lot of space in your kitchen – and can leave a big hole in your wallet.
Microwaves that don’t do what they’re meant to take up a lot of space – and can leave a big hole in your wallet
If you’re not a fan of lukewarm food or complicated appliances, it’s worth finding out which microwaves flunked out in our tests.
CHOICE home economist Fiona Mair tests each microwave’s reheating performance with the ‘hedgehog’ – an instrument with 12 needles that measure temperature throughout a quiche.
She talks us through what makes for a mediocre microwave.
Complicated controls
Some microwaves are so tricky to figure out that you just about need an engineering degree to operate them. Or you need the patience of a saint to read through the entire instruction manual just so you can warm up your leftovers.
“We mark down microwaves that have controls that are difficult to comprehend, that don’t have clear written labelling, or hidden functions within a function,” Fiona says.
“With microwaves like these, you’ll need to constantly refer back to the manual, which means you most likely won’t end up using your microwave to its full potential.”
Lukewarm reheating skills
Hands up if you pretty much exclusively use your microwave to warm leftovers? No need to be embarrassed: it’s one of the most common ways people use their microwaves.
“Low-scoring microwaves struggle with heating solid foods evenly, which means you’ll end up with cold spots in your food,” says Fiona.
“Nearly all of the low-scoring microwaves in our test performed poorly when reheating.”
You can’t get a look in
“Another factor that contributes to microwaves scoring poorly is visibility,” Fiona says.
“Viewing the food cooking or heating in your microwave is essential for better control. The viewing window needs to be large enough and easy to see through with effective lighting.
“The low-scoring microwaves in our tests generally didn’t have good visibility.”
You might be surprised to learn that the lowest scoring products aren’t always the cheapest. In fact, in our microwave tests, some of the poorest performers were well-known brands.
That’s why it’s so important to do your research before buying an appliance.
You might be surprised to learn that some of the poorest performers were well-known brands
Buy a cheapie and it could either be a bargain wonder or a dismal failure that’ll die after a few months. Conversely, if you cough up extra dollars for a better brand, you could strike it lucky or be left out of pocket twice over when you have to replace it.
Our experts really know their way around a kitchen: Fiona has been hard at work in CHOICE’s kitchen lab since 1997, and our kitchen experts have more than 35 years’ experience between them, so when they recommend a microwave you can be sure it’s a winner.
Below are the models that failed to impress in our testing.
Smeg SAM34XI
CHOICE Expert Rating: 65%
Price: $630
You don’t need to spend $630 on a Smeg microwave.
If your budget for a new microwave stretches beyond $500, we suggest you don’t spend it on this Smeg.
In fact, you don’t necessarily need to spend more than $500 at all: 18 of the 19 microwaves that are recommended by our experts in our current review cost less than $500, so there’s really no need to outlay that kind of moolah for a microwave.
If you’re the kind of home cook who uses their microwave almost exclusively for reheating leftovers (guilty as charged), then this is one to definitely cross off your Christmas list: it scored just 45% on our reheating test, which our experts class as “poor”.
If your budget stretches beyond $500, we suggest you don’t spend it on this Smeg
To be fair, it was rated as “good” for cooking broccoli and “very good” for grilling toast (this model has a grill) and defrosting mince, but that’s cold comfort when it’s not much chop at heating up last night’s takeaway.
And while you’d expect high-class performance from a designer European brand, the SAM34XI couldn’t even compete with the four Kmart Anko microwaves in our current review. We suggest you say “no, grazie” to this one.
Westinghouse WMB2522SC: A $900 machine just for cooking broccoli?
Yes, you read that right: $900 for a microwave. And an ordinary one at that.
In its defence, it’s a fancy stainless steel, built-in model that has a fairly large capacity, and it’s excellent at cooking broccoli, but for that kind of money you’d expect near-perfect performance all round.
So where did this Westinghouse crash and burn?
A big factor in its score was its ability (or lack thereof) to evenly reheat food. With a score of just 48%, it didn’t even get a pass mark on this test.
Considering that that’s one of the main purposes of a microwave, it’s hard to justify the price tag.
A big factor in this microwave’s score was its ability (or lack thereof) to evenly reheat food
It’s also not exactly a joy to use: our experts rated it as “OK” for the ease of use assessment. Accessing some functions is a multi-step process that requires using a dial, as well as constant checking of the instruction manual to get it right.
The controls aren’t grouped together in a logical way, and the start/stop button isn’t obvious, so even after you’ve figured out how to choose the right function to heat up your leftover laksa, you might be stuck waiting even longer for your lunch.
Eight of the microwaves our experts recommend cost less than $300, so you don’t necessarily need to spend a fortune for a good microwave.
Instead of spending this kind of money on a microwave, you could take out a CHOICE membership, pick up a similarly-sized one that’s recommended by our experts for $450 or less, and still come out ahead.
One of the smallest microwaves in our current review, this Russell Hobbs also has one of the smallest scores.
Its ability to reheat food is lukewarm at best, with our experts rating it just 50% for this test – not exactly a ringing endorsement, considering that most of us use our microwaves just for reheating leftovers.
And visibility through the door is also very poor, our experts say, so you won’t be able to tell when the cheese on last night’s pizza has reached the perfect degree of bubbling.
One of the smallest microwaves in our review, it also has one of the smallest scores
It scored perfect marks for defrosting mince and was excellent at melting chocolate, but you don’t exactly buy a microwave for those two tasks alone, do you?
If you’re after a small microwave, there are better options out there – and some of them are cheaper, too.
This model isn’t up to Panasonic’s usual standard.
Panasonic generally makes great microwaves: it was named CHOICE Best Brand in 2024, and again in 2025 when it shared the top spot with Sharp.
Plus, the brand was named as most reliable and had the highest owner satisfaction of all brands in the latest CHOICE Product Reliability Survey.
Unfortunately this pricey Panasonic seems to be the black sheep of the high-achieving family. It’s one of the two most expensive microwaves from the brand in our review, but was outscored even by Panasonics costing less than $200.
It actually did well on a number of our tests, but like the models above it didn’t sizzle when it came to reheating food. Its ease of use also left our testers cold – they found it difficult to use the functions and to clean.
The NN-ST69QS isn’t Panasonic’s best work, but if you want to buy from the brand, check our detailed microwave reviews first to discover its better-performing, cheaper cousins.
This Sharp is more expensive than most of the microwaves recommended by our experts, but it scores worse than most microwaves in our test.
That doesn’t sound like good value to us.
It rated among the lowest for cooking performance of all the microwaves we tested, and our experts found that it performed very poorly when cooking broccoli. The salad dodgers among us will be pleased to know that it did well when melting chocolate, however.
This microwave’s test scores read like a manual on mediocrity
This microwave’s test scores read like a manual on mediocrity: our experts said it was “only OK” on a number of tests, like defrosting mince, manually reheating solid foods, and visibility through the door.
It’s also not easy to keep clean, and its fan is pretty noisy even after you’ve finished cooking.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
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