The burners

They are quite suitable for our everyday needs. Having all the burners with the same performance makes the range a lot more usable and its definitely faster than the GE it replaced. To turn a burner up to full speed, your pot needs a largish diameter, but I had those from trying to compensate for the large burner ring sizes on the GE.

As an example, the same couple of pints of water that would literally never boil on the power burner of the ge profile, boil in the same pot in under 5 minutes. A gallon will boil in about 10 minutes. Pan searing is light years faster. It feels twice as fast with much better results more even browning. dh claims just about everything tastes better.

Rice cooks really well - its almost a different food now. Fluffy, puffy with individual grains not glued together by starch. I'm guessing its the precision burner temps cause I'm the same cook.

Re-ignition of burners is splendid. The GE used to have a burner go out a couple of times a year due to air movement or pot boil overs. Not only does it work well, but its fun to demonstrate.

The Oven

With its now fixed door, its truly lovable. Since the new oven door was installed, the top of the range no longer becomes excessively hot when baking.

I know some people think the oven is a little small, but to me, its big compared to the oven in the ge and just about every oven I've had in the past. I can pack lots o' stuff in there.

It preheats quickly and holds temperature well. I'd say that the days of 50-100 degree swings in the oven temperatures are over! I'm not a cookie person, so I can't speak to that or to sheet goods, but bread does wonderful in plain bake.

With the convection fan on - it's quite the rocket. The chicken never even saw it coming and bam-o, its done*.

The infrared broiler has been the biggest surprise. The last few ranges have had broilers that created fast black food or undercooked food. The broiler is surprising gentle - so controlled that I can get toppings to be golden brown or deep brown easily. The only thing to relearn is positioning the food further away than I'd use with a conventional broiler.

Cleaning

Och! The oven! I am just not going to wipe down an oven every time I use it. I've decided to do what I've done in the past, clean the oven three or four times a year. I asked the tech what he would recommend and he said he'd think about just burning it off by running the oven all the way up periodically. I might try that soon, but keep in mind that tech had never seen an nxr before.

Yea! The stove top! This is so much easier to clean than GE Profile (Schott ceramic-glass). This is mostly due to the burner and burner pan design with the deep wells around each burner. When a boilover happens, it's easily cleaned later because it didn't burn on. Fairly simple to just wipe out. The grates are doing well with wiping.

The Quality level

I'm a function person, so overall, I'm very happy with it but I'm not blind either. There are things about the way its finished that could be improved. An example is the back vent - some sharpness and some not so great finishing on the bends and cut edges.

The multiple part top is a slight pita. I do find it a little bit hard to clean and wish it would either come apart completely or be less pieces.

The things that make it cook are generally well done. An example of both the good and the not-so-good are the grates. They are the proper height for cooking on those burners, adding to the feeling of control BUT they could be finished better without small repairs to the enamel coatings. They could fit better into their slot in the top or the slots could be made a little smaller.

Blending parts made with 403 steel with parts made from 304 stainless is a complete non-issue for me. No rust, no difference in cleaning.

Overall, I'm ok with slight fit and finish issues as a trade for the price to get a lovely oven and good burners.

Little things

For me, this range was a big step up in performance and I had to change over doing more prep before starting the pan heating - the GE profile was slow enough that it really didn't matter. I've adjusted well after only a few Experiments-In-Very-Dark-Brown. If you're upgrading your range experience, I give you absolution in advance for yours.

Getting the hang of the oven timings was a big surprise - I hadn't realized just how off the GE was. Most things are done a little shorter than the recipe time and way shorter than I was used to because the GE was slow. Only 3 Experiments-In-Very-Dark-Brown to get a better feel for it.

It's amazing how pictographs are mapped by my mind in a fairly unchangable way. The diagrams beside the burner handles apparently show the dark colored side as on and the light colored side is off to normal people. No matter how I try, to me the light colored side is the burner on and the dark colored one is off. Gave up lately and got out the labeler. Now the top of two knobs sport the word "front" - the part that faces up when off (like "This side towards enemy").

As a bonus, it's now readily apparent when glancing down that the burner is, in fact, off! Trouble determining that is an unexpected result of having the knobs on the front, under an overhang, with a slightly shy knob marking system, being a little tall and used to just glancing down to check offness. Plus, some days with the sun, we can't see the blue flames even with the burner turned all the way up.

I love the overhang - it really does save you from having to constantly clean the knobs and the front of the oven.

I don't shuffle pots anymore. Since all of the burners are the same size, there's no point to moving them around. With the GE and its multiple size rings, I was constantly moving pans to/from a different burner to get more or less power for a certain size pot.
You might not like this range if you have a lot of small diameter pots. Since I don't use expensive pots, it was no trouble and not much cost to trade out the smallest ones for new larger diameter pots.

An example was trading out a 3 quart tall but narrow stainless pot for a 3 quart casserole. They both seem to have the same effective space, but the smaller diameter didn't mesh well with the burner size.

The inner ring flame doesn't get hot enough by itself to bring about a boil in a timely fashion and the pot didn't cover the outer ring so most of the heat shot up the side of the pan instead. So, the difference in the pan (shorter but wider) makes it work.

Alas, my italian stovetop coffee pot will never work by itself. I can use it after a fashion by heating a thick simmer plate to h--l and pre-warming the water in the micro while the plate is heating. As if to make up for the Rube Goldberg Coffee System(tm), its fun to see it start to steam within a few seconds of being placed on the plate.

The grate tine spacing isn't great for small pots either. A nominal 8" fry pan can cant sideways, care is needed to use something less than about a 6" diameter pot because it can suddenly flip sideways if not carefully placed.

Overall

Having completely recovered from the repair experience, I'm pretty happy. I have a far better oven and burners than the general home range. I feel empowered by it - that I can cook anything now. I could cook on the GE, but not as well and not without a whole load of frustration.

Even with service-experience, I would buy this range again.

* Looks at feet and scuffs them. I admit to suffering from hyperbole.