I went and looked at the amazon reviews out of curiosity. Sometimes the negative reviews are worthless - "the item arrived 2 days late" or "the shipping company damaged it". In this case there are only 4 reviews but 2 of them are very negative and seem detailed and realistic. On the other hand, any product you can find will have some negative reviews.

Although the price is really outstanding, I guess I would pass particularly if you don't really need a new range at this point. Given your frugality, I would say this range range is a bit of a gamble.

I havta agree with weissman as far as buying it. Looking at reiews it runs about 50-50 good versus bad, to me a pretty high ratio of "Bads". I looked at 31 reviews on Nexttag,
Click the link below to see for yourself!

Gary

Here is a link that might be useful: Reviews

Weissman, dodge59, thank you very much -- you are probably right to be cautious -- I bought it before I had a chance to see your responses. (Had to go with the kids when their schedules allowed.) At the store they assured me that their 30-day money back policy applies, and I also bought the extended warranty (I don't usually, but it seemed prudent in this case) so I am hoping that this will be a non-lemon version. If it is one of the lemons, I hope that will show up within the first couple of weeks! I am going to hedge my bets by not getting rid of my existing range right away, and there is no hurry to replace the white hood. I might not even buy any new pots quite yet since I do have some that will work on induction.

I took my biggest pot and my biggest skillet (both induction compatible) and they fit with room to spare, and the burner layout actually looks pretty good for me, so I am going to be cautiously optimistic. There is a long lag time for delivery but that is OK (we are going out of town). We shall see.

Hope it works out for you. I would love 50-50 Odds in Vegas!

Gary

We have had the Samsung induction floor model for a little over 2 years and have cooked the past two TG turkeys on convection roast in only 2.5 hours. I also went from coiltops to the induction, so it was a little bit of a learning curve.

No problems, but we also bought the extended warranty. Got a great deal, not as good as yours, but close. It was too hard to pass it up. I think because only two people I've ever met IRL know what is induction.

I've not had any major issues with the burner layout. The only thing that's awkward is the Ikea wok that must go on the little front burner, but I don't use it that often.

Good luck! Hope your experience is as good as ours.

Hi, gsciencechick, I thought I remembered that your range was a Samsung. I'm really glad you weighed in, and that's great that yours is working so well for you! That is very reassuring. Now if I could just find a cool retro fridge we would be appliance twins. :)

Don't know where you found yours, but ours was at hhgregg.

I thought I uploaded a picture from Christmas, but it's not here now.

Forgot to mention the dutch oven is Emerilware which I had on our wedding registry that fortunately works great, and the nonstick is Infinite Circulon which was a rebate that came with the range. It has held up well.

Also have a LeCreuset grill pan we use a lot.

That's a really good deal. Stay away from self cleaning and really long canning sessions and it will likely last a long time.

That looks great, gscience, and thanks for the input, laat2!

I am taking note of cookware brands, so thanks for that, gsciencechick. I'll shop around for pots at some point. My 20-y.o. Farberware (still in great condition) and DH's even older Revere won't work. Yes, we both had sets when we got married and we each preferred our own (though they function exactly the same), so we have two full sets of cookware in our little kitchen. ha. It will actually save us space to have to get something new.

Northcarolina:

Please report back here when you get it installed and have time to work with that Samsung induction stove.

With that large front burner, you might very well be able to do some canning, if your interests go that way. IIRC, that front burner is big enough to easily handle most of the readily available graniteware pressure canning kettles.

I have looked at this stove while searching for an induction range, but mostly on-line. A couple of things gave me pause about buying it for myself.

One is the burner layout. Gsciencechick's photo shows how this layout might work well for some people. But, in my case, during holiday seasons, when I host several large events including holiday dinners, I often have 4 big pans going at once. Gsciencechick's photo shows the Samsung's layout probably would not work for me. It may well work for others. (Thanks for the photo, by the way.)

A second thing is that this stove has the burner control touchpad on the cooktop. Many induction cooktop units (as opposed to ranges) have this kind of layout. Some poeple prefer this layout. Others are fine with it. Others, including me, personally do not care for it. I'm old enough to remember problems with cooktop surface controls on the generation of induction stoves sold in the US back in the 1980s. Cooking spills and hot baking dishes pulled from the oven and set down --- the habit of a lifetime of cooking in small kitchens --- could damage the controls. I do not know if that is still true, but maybe NorthCarolina can see what the manual says about it for the Samsung when it arrives for installation.

JWVideo, you are right about that burner layout not working for everyone. I can't see how you could have more than 2 large pans, or maybe 3, going at the same time, but I'll see if I can test it out once it's here. I do like having a large burner in front (not all induction ranges have that and it would be kind of a deal breaker for me). I'll have to be sure to cook at least one big meal while it's still in its 30-day return window. Thanks for the user manual reminder -- I just downloaded it since the floor model doesn't come with it. I don't see anything in particular about the touch pad except how to operate it.

There will be things to get used to, I'm sure of that. On the other hand I already have workarounds with my current range... like having to rotate my cookie sheets (front to back) if I want anything resembling even baking, and sauteeing using a burner that sits at a slight tilt (lol).

We also looked at Samsung and I liked the fact that it had both the steam clean and self clean cycles. We did find out that Samsung was discontinuing them and we were told no new model was being produced at this time. hhgregg did say that they had reduced their last couples one to less than $1,000.

I posted about mine - we ended up with the GE Profile. Not as low priced as we could have gotten the Samsung from Lowes but still a good deal.

I meant to add that we had to buy new cookware and I found a nice set of Emerilware at Macy's that was being discontinued. Not as expensive as All Clad by any means but it is made by them. So far so good. I'm new to induction and to convection ovens.

Check out the Cookware Forum and the Home Decorating Forum on the converstion side. We have been having a discussion there about induction cookware.

That's kind of sad they are discontinuing them.

Good luck, Northcarolina! Roast a chicken on the convection. I got a manual with ours but I didn't get a broiler pan, which is needed for the convection.

There was a different Samsung induction range on the floor next to this one (this was at Best Buy). The new one had a more conventional burner arrangement, but I didn't look very closely. It could be an alternative if it turns out that I love induction but can't work with the burners (or bought a dud). Thanks for the heads up about the cookware conversation; I'll check it out.

The good news is you purchased this item cheap and purchased the extended warranty. There were two builds of this range. The second one has a build date of June 2010 I believe. It fixes the extended fan run time of the first generation built in 2009. (if your fan runs longer than about 10 minutes after the cook top is shut off, you may need a main board replacement) I have owned two of the FTQ307's (both replaced under warranty) and just purchased a Samsung NE597N0PBSR. The NE597N0PBSR is the FTQ307 replacement model. Out of the box the NE597... right front burner did/does not work at all. The replacement range will be delivered tommorrow.

This newer model changes the stove top layout to a more conventional look, and the fan noises of the ftq307 are all but gone. The cook top power is a little lower than the FTQ307 but the oven performs about the same, with a few more features added to the oven control pad.

The cook top finger sliding control is gone. I actually liked that feature.

Thanks, riderman... I think (ha). That's a shame about your series of bad ranges. I hope your newest replacement works well. Thank you very much for the information -- joking aside, it is very helpful and I will hope that mine turns out to be OK. If not, I have the warranty at least. Delivery is in a couple of days.

Ours is a 2009 but I have no issues with fan time with using the cooktop. They run for about 10 min and that's it.

Northcarolina, any updates?

Hi, gscience -- it came a couple of days ago. I have been testing it with my cast iron but haven't cooked much of anything yet (lots of running around town this week), so the jury is still out. The fan does seem to run for quite a while after I've had something on the cooktop (not every time though), and the large burner goes in and out when my 10" pan is on it. That pan is a hair under 9" diam on the bottom so that might be the problem, though it would be a bummer if so. Anyway, I finally caved and brought home a couple of induction-friendly pots today so I could test boiling water in something other than my poor cast iron pans (and smaller than my pressure cookers). 4 cups of water in a 2-qt pot came to a rolling boil in 3 min on High on the 6" burner -- sound about right to you? I was impressed, anyway. I bought myself a new 12" skillet, which I needed anyway, so I will test the big burner a few more times with that. Did you say your 10" grill pan works on the big burner?

I emailed Samsung today to ask if the pan detection error with the 10" pan and the fan were things that could be fixed -- if not, I'll just have to decide if it matters. I would really like to be able to use my 10" skillet on that front burner (and I can, for a few minutes anyway). There is a dent on the warming drawer that I didn't see in the store (you have to be at the right angle in the right light to see it) so that's another thing I have to think about. Tomorrow I plan to do some actual cooking -- including a chicken, as you suggested! so we'll see how that goes.

I do really like the chirpy sounds the touch pad makes. :)

I don't mean to sound lackluster; I am avoiding an emotional investment until I have all my data in place (i.e. have cooked a full meal and accurately assessed what's going on with the big burner). In other words, I am being, well, a scientific chick. :)

p.s. Does yours cycle on and off on low power settings? This one does -- though I don't really cook the kind of food where it would make a difference.

Laat2 - why do you say stay away from the self cleaning cycle? Someone asked a question about the heat damamging the cooktop. Is that why? If you don't have the steam option, how would you clean it routinely?

NC, thanks for the update. My Emerilware 10" fry pan will not work on the large front burner because the base is too small for the burner. However, the larger French skillet and the 10" LeCrueset grill pan work really well because they have a larger flat bottom that covers most of the burner, even though the grill pan is square. I used the grill pan tonight to cook our burgers since it was so wet out. I usually preheat the grill pan and cook on 5.

The water boiling is definitely similar. It's awesome.

Yes, it does cycle on and off on the very low settings like when I am simmering rice. It's great because I can power boost the rice to boil and then take it low immediately.

Good luck with the roasting!

OK, here we go. I don't know how useful this will be since this is a discontinued model, but maybe it will help someone looking at a similar burner arrangement. First pic is of my new pans getting seasoned. :) (Yes, I bought bacon for the sake of the pans.) I would not normally be using pans this large all at the same time, but I wanted to see how much would fit. This is a 12" skillet, 10" grill pan, and my larger pressure cooker being used as a normal pot. I don't know the capacity of the big pot but it's, well, big. The diameter of the bottom contact area is only 7" and it works just fine on the 6" burner. It's crowded but it all did work, and I could fit a 3-qt pot on the extra burner.
{{gwi:1450018}}

Next up: well, this was to show the beautiful low simmer I got about one second after lowering the heat from a rolling boil. I didn't time the boil (busy with the bacon) but it was probably about 10 min. This tall pot does partially obscure the oven controls, but at least the off-on and temp controls are on the top row so you can get to those.
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Last up is more normal usage for me and you can see that there is much less crowding. This was supper: okra, butterbeans, corn. That 10" skillet is my most-used pan, and you can see that a 12" would be more appropriate for the amount of okra (hence the new skillet) but I wanted to test the 10" on that burner. It is very touchy. It stayed on long enough to cook the okra, but changing the power level or moving the pan would cause a detection error (it doesn't do that on any other burner). The shorter pressure cooker pot (holding the corn) does not block the control panel. The only other comment about this is that the butterbeans did not boil over even in the little 2-qt pot (despite years of butterbean-cooking I seem to boil them over more often than not... maybe not with induction, though).
{{gwi:1450020}}

Chicken took longer than I expected to roast on convection so I need to go read up on that... it's probably because my old oven didn't lower the temp for convection like this one does. I had coconut macaroons baking on the other two racks at the same time as the chicken at one point, and cooking was not even, vertically speaking (lowest rack was done first), but front-to-back seemed even and that is good.

The dent in the warming drawer is bigger than I thought, now that I have been down to look at it more closely. It is quite shallow and wide so not noticeable unless the light hits it right, which it does in our kitchen. It annoys me.

Jury is still out. :) I really need to be able to use my 10" skillet on that front burner.

Thanks for the info, gscience. My 10" grill pan was off and on with the big burner yesterday, sometimes fine and sometimes not detected. Wonder if your Le Creuset is a little bigger.