800W Digital control microwave £27.99 Sainsburys

Rave

I spotted these the other day at £34.99, and since our microwave works patchily decided to go back for one. When I got there they'd reduced them to £27.99- which is only about £3.50 more than the cheapest basic analogue ones. Bargain:).

Carrie.F

Whats the difference between a DIGITAL And NORMAL microwave.....

If its snowing when I cook reheat the curry.......
its hot for 30secs then nothing at all?
Does it come out all pixie thingy'ied ?

thommo

Carrie.F wrote:

Whats the difference between a DIGITAL And NORMAL microwave.....

If its snowing when I cook reheat the curry.......
its hot for 30secs then nothing at all?
Does it come out all pixie thingy'ied ?

Been on the old vino have we???

Roger_Rampant

The first sentence struck me as quite reasonable

Marks

Carrie.F wrote:

Whats the difference between a DIGITAL And NORMAL microwave.....

(Digital)

(Analog)

Roger_Rampant

Oh it just means that you have touch buttons on the front instead of dials?

Haha, learn something new everyday!

tyke65

when choosing whether or not to get a digital microwave, bear in mind the information from the friends of the earth website

"After use, switch off your microwave at the wall. It takes more energy to power the display clock than the oven."

gromituk

That's true. My digital control microwave is in a cupboard with a switch on the door, cutting the power when it's closed. This also means that I can use the microwave in the cupboard, because it ensures I leave the door open for ventilation. The nasty ugly device spends most of its time hidden away - yay!

If I ever get another microwave I'll have to make sure that it doesn't insist on me setting the clock before allowing me to cook anything!

Carrie.F

thommo wrote:

Been on the old vino have we???

Just woken from my stupor...I resemble that remark..:beer:

neilcaldwell

tyke65 wrote:

when choosing whether or not to get a digital microwave, bear in mind the information from the friends of the earth website

"After use, switch off your microwave at the wall. It takes more energy to power the display clock than the oven."

Good point but shouldn't the pressure be on the manufacturers to help us with this. The socket for my microwave is behind said appliance and that would mean pulling it out off the worktop and balancing it on the edge while I squeeze my arm in to power the socket on/off each time. If however the kind manufacturer had supplied a nice isolating On/off switch on the machine it would be childsplay to save all this wasted energy. I counted 4 clocks in my kitchen. Don't even start me on the living room and what's under the telly!

Most TV's have a mains power isolating switch, so why couldn't this practise be enforced and rolled out to other devices eg VCR, DVD, PVR, NTL, Sky etc etc, instead of leaving everything on standby.

gromituk

This is a very good point. It is partly due to "function creep" and partly because proper mains switches actually cost a bit more than low-power "standby" switches, so have gone out of fashion as costs are continually cut. Remember when PCs and hifis all had proper mains switches? Not any more. The lame excuse for a PC is that the constant auxiliary power can be used to wake the device up on a signal from the network port, or a timer. But who uses this feature? Instead, it's left consuming power all the time for nothing. The lame excuse for a hifi is so that it is listening for the remote control all the time.

I have a feeling the EC is indeed looking into this. I recently discovered that the energy rating system has been extended to central heating pumps.