After having such a horrible experience with the Kenmore electric range, I am afraid to try Kenmore again. Still have some extended warrranty left which will transfer to the Samsung. I have had great luck with my other Samsung appliances, so I hope I do with the range also. My husband laughed at me when I told him that the appearance of the Kenmore just left me cold, but when he saw it, he felt the same way. Blah. Can't put my finger on why. gscience chick, after baking I usually leave my oven door cracked open in the winter anyway for the heat boost to the kitchen. My son uses Circulon Infinite pans on his induction and really likes them. (Interesting to get cooking advice from my son!) In browsing the net, Circulon has a 25% off sale this month as well as deep discounts on the Infinite (looks like Symmetry will be replacing it). I found an 11 inch skillet for roughly $18 and a twin pack 10 and 12 skillet for $36 (Symmetry), etc. Then on the potsandpans.com website I was able to find the 3qt saucepan for a really good price. I have a few pots and pans that I can use from before (I hope). Two of them have 8 3/4" bases - hope I can use them . . . I love my Calphalon Contemporary saucepans and hate to lose them, but I see that they are coming out with a Contemporary IH line (induction friendly) - in Australia, but not here yet. Maybe soon . . .? Guess my life is kind of dull when I can get so excited about a new range! Any hints and suggestions will be appreciated!

I think the takeaway here is to not put all your eggs in one basket. Each material has it's pluses and minuses. I like a variety of materials and the following is a quick rundown of what I use and a brief observation of them. SS for induction is great because it's reasonably responsive with an aluminum or copper core. Getting as much of that core material as possible will make the induction really shine when a recipe calls for rapid temp changes. One of my favorite things is that they can go in the dishwasher and you can use some heavy duty cleaners in case of an oops. I've had one warp on me, but the others are nice and flat. You'll also be looking at clad base vs fully clad. What and how you're cooking will enter into the decision making. Skillets and sauciers really use the heat that radiates up the sides. A stock pot doesn't, and the big ones are usually clad-base, only, anyway. Cast iron is great for maintaining a temperature. Braising, frying in oil, and such. Wonderful for stovetop to oven cooking and searing. It doesn't heat evenly and is not responsive at all. Whether enameled or seasoned metal, it's a good tool. Carbon steel needs seasoning and reapplying it is a given. Metal tools will scrape it off. Great for high heat cooking. You'll find very reasonably priced woks at an Asian market. Lots of cooks will use this material in place of non-stick. They do warp, and that can be a pain on glass when they start spinning. Cast iron and carbon steel are at their best when they're used regularly to maintain their seasoning. Acid in food will wear on seasoning, so simmering something like tomato based dishes isn't advised. They are hand wash only. Non-stick is awesome for scrambled eggs, fish, and other delicate preparations. It's best for low to med-low cooking. The coating will wear over time and the dishwasher speeds that up. I would get an inexpensive one.

Earlier this year I was thinking the output on the two front burners was low. Then I noticed that that there was a vibration when I was using the cooktop. So around June 1 I asked Miele to come take a look at it. They called back a day later and said they would send a third party to come look at it. I declined, stating one of the reasons I purchased the HR1622 was because Miele has their own in house technicians. So Miele sends their own technician out two weeks later. The technician says you need a fan and the two front burners. I’ll order parts and come back. Three weeks later Miele calls, says the parts are in, need to schedule the install. Earliest we can be there two weeks away. The night before the appointment Miele calls and says we will not be there tomorrow, as we do not have your parts yet. What the heck? Another two weeks pass, and Miele calls to schedule the install. We can be there August 14th. 2 techs came and installed the new parts on the 14th. 10 weeks to fix my range. Seems a bit long to me. As much as I love my Hr1622, I’ll need to rethink buying a Miele product in the future. On the bright side, my front burners work as well as new, and no more vibrations. Here is a pic of the old 11” burner:

In digital speak, knobs = a "rotary control interface." :>) This is a personal preference that others share and have mentioned as I did in this thread from four years ago: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2339367/does-anyone-here-who-went-induction-regret-your-choice So, there is no need to apologize for your preferences much less fear the wrath of rabid induction fanboys. (Fortunately, this site is usually pretty civil and we don't have alot of flaming.) >>>" It is hard to believe that there are not more people out there who want . . .knobs and mechanical buttons . . ."<<< Well, there are enough of us that there are presently at least nine or ten knob-controlled induction range models currently on offer. Besides the premium priced Mieles and Vikings that homepro listed, the next price tier down ($4k-$5k) has Dacor, Fisher & Paykel, and Bertazzoni. In the $2500 pricing tier you can find Samung's knob-controlled "Chef Collection" induction slide-in. Frigidaire makes a slide-in with knobs ($1500 to $1700, depending on where, when and from whom you buy it) and several knob-controlled freestanding models including three sold under Sears's Kenmore brand. FWIW, nobody seems to make rotary knob controllers for ovens on induction ranges. >>>"the simplicity of knobs and mechanical buttons, which I bet correlates well with longevity. How I long for the good old days before we became a disposable culture."<<< You have a lot of company here on this point. It represents one of the basic tradeoffs in choosing any stove these days. At least it is if your budget can accomodate premium priced pro-style gas ranges that dispense with digital whatevers. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else these days comes with at least digital oven controls. You want a "Sabbath/Shabat" mode or a self cleaning oven? Your stove will have microprocessor driven control boards for the oven. This is the "digital trade-off" --- choosing between simple but very limited mechanical systems and feature rich electronic systems. For the extra "digital" capabilities, we get uncertainty about how many of whose boards are durable enough to last for the long haul and whether or not yours will be one of the long lived ones. Add to that the sheer expense of replacing the boards when they do fail. Against this is the perceived simplicity and (hopefully) low costs of replacing parts in mechanical systems. (This is not a universal truth as some folks with older, supposedly "mechanical" VIking gas ranges and Italian imports have learned to their sorrow --- even OEM sourced parts may be discontinued or impossible to find, and may be very expensive and hard to install.) Now, many electronics-based stoves may last for a good long time, but a goodly number will fail along the way. For everybody who,like my aunt who still has her 1980s-vintage Kenmore induction range, you can find other folks posting stories of woe about massive board failures on three and four year old induction ranges. In this regard, I am thinking of Kaseki's recent post here where he suggested that we might want to think about induction stoves as rental goods. If the stove costs you $2k and lasts for five years, consider that you've been renting it for $400 per year. If it last ten years, then you've rented it for $200 per year. You won't be thinking that way with, say, a mechnically driven BlueStar range. Of course, none of this means your BlueStar will be hassle free. You may have different problems, particularly if there is some kind of manufacturing or design defect, judging by some of the postings I've seen here over the years. There seems to be no getting way from choosing a stove being a choice of trade-offs. >>>The "Burning Question<<< It seems to me that there always will be something of a learning curve when getting a new stove. Whether the learning curve is steep and long or easy and brief is as much a matter of personal background and training as it is the stoves. I'm not talking about personal defects, just personal differences and preferences. That I -- who grew up cooking on electric stoves --- might find induction super easy does not mean that there's anything wrong with you because you find the adjustment harder than I did. For those used to gas stoves, it may seem easier ("more intuitive") to work with the visual cues from the flame spread on a gas burner. With electric stoves, you have to take sometimes subtler cues from what is going on in the pan. One person's "intuitive" system can easily be another person's steep learning curve. All that being said, I personally have both a gas range and an induction cooktop. I strongly prefer making my morning oatmeal on the induction for exactly the same "fire and forget" capabilities explained by sjhockeyfan. Speaking of learning curves, I've never burned anything on the induction cooktop. After I got my current gas range -- it is my first pro-style range --- there was a bit of learning curve over my previous stove, a dual fuel range. The new stove's bigger burners were just enough different from before that I had three instances when I burned things so badly that I needed oven cleaner and a steel scraper to clean the pots. >>>"But I really hate all the electronic gizmos. That could be subject of another rant. I hate the sound of the beeps. And sometimes, it doesn't take and I have to press again."<<< Again, you've got company. A lot of stoves these days come with digital whatevers that beep, ding, flash and otherwise. This is to the annoyance of some and to the pleasure of others. That brings me back to saying that every range will be a mix of engineering compromises and design trade-offs. Getting some features may require putting up with unwanted aspects while dispensing with digital controllers may be a trade-off for giving up features like self-cleaning ovens. For example, take the burner timers that I believe your Bosch range has (like those on sjhockeyfan's and my induction cooktops.) This kind of feature will appeal to many but be totally useless to others. There is more of it coming as indicated by GE's latest cooktops and the latest iterations of the controllers for its induction ranges. They have bluetooth and wi-fif connectivity to allow burner timer and temp control from smart phones. That sort of thing can be a factor, maybe, in somebody choosing an induction stove over a pro-style gas range with minimal electronics. Or vice versa. Digital burner control is not easy to do with gas ranges, but it is possible. Remember last year's "Meld Project?" The folks were trying to manufacture and sell a Bluetooth-enabled digital-gas-knob controller. Basically, a wireless, pot-mounted temperature probe sent readings to a receiver in the burner knob which directed motors to rotate the knob to maintain a chosen temperature, all programmed and run from a smart phone app. With Kickstarter funding and media and blog coverage, the developers and testers had a lot of fun but ran out of money before products could be developed sufficiently for sale to customers. Some of us seeing that will say, "I want that." Others of us will say "its one more &()##*^% layer of technology that will screw up and be either unrepairable or too expensive to replace, so I don't want to mess with it."