I had a big counter top (Sharp I think) one I bought about 10 years ago at Sears. It worked fine but we ended up giving it away because it was so big. I used it for an extra oven at holiday time. Now I have a double oven stove and have no interest in a convection microwave. I only wanted it for the holiday time when I needed 2 ovens.

we have a panasonic MW convection oven we bought in 1985. For the first few years we used some of the convection features occasionally, on those rare occasions when we needed 2 ovens to prepare a meal. they are inconvenient in that you need to put in a special rack when you use the convection feature. so you need space to store it where you can easily reach it. and it's another thing that you need to clean.

unless you are a very ambitious cook who enjoys trying new and sometimes complicated meals, and you have the time and energy for that, you will probably find that you won't use the convection feature after the novelty wears off.

by the way, our 23 year old panasonic is still going strong. we checked it for MW leaks and found none.

The new ones don't require a special rack. We bought one today at Sears. It was $530 which is only a couple of hundred more then the ones without the convection. It was well rated by Consumer's Reports, too.

They won't have it until Friday, though. No microwave for 5 days.

If you get the convection and find you don't use it [I don't use that feature of mine], you really haven't lost much.

But I'd never, have a ventilation microwave. I hate them so very much that if it were OTR or no microwave, I'd choose no microwave, and smile about it. They cost too much and break too easily, they are hard to install, they are generally inadequete as both microwaves and vents, and the are supremely inconvenient.

Inevitably, when you are super busy at the range working on every burner, someone will want to make a cup of tea or thaw some rolls or some darn thing. And you'll have to step aside and twiddle your thumbs while they fiddle and fuss and your food scorches, then you get to stand there with your brain pressed up against a powerful radiation source, and the minute it beeps [and beeps and beeps in your ear], you'll be expected to step aside yet again...

Now, if only the cook used the micro, mostly to melt butter for hollandaise or the like, it would be fine. But that isn't how most families use the microwave.

I have the Advantium 120 built-in. I LOVE it. Mostly we use it as a MW, but tonight I baked cookies in it, using the convection function -- without having to heat up the whole kitchen with my big oven. What a pleasure! It took about 2 minutes to cool down and then I reheated my leftover cuppa coffee to go with the warm cookies.

If you are going to get an OTR (is there any alternative?) you might as well get the dual function one. You never know when you'll need a second oven.

We got the Advantium 120 for a good reason, my wife wanted it. It has been a good and well used appliance. The convection is not used extensively but we do use it and yes we have a larger convection oven. The advantium does have other advantages which I like as well. It is a good proofing oven and the keep warm function is great. It actually is very versatile.

We have lived in our motorhome for the last 5 years (house comming soon) and a Sharp Convection Microwave has been our only oven. It has been used for most everything from pies and cookies to pizza to the occasional cake and a lot of breakfast rolls etc. as well as the standard microwave stuff. It works very well when you figure it out. A class or so on using it helped a lot.

I have had an OTR microwave for 25 years so I am used to it. If I redid the kitchen, I would not put it there, sometimes it does get in the way. However, I have limited counter space and 95% of the time it's placement is no problem.

The one that just broke was over 10 years old and we never had any problems with it. As far as installing it, we can install it using the wall mount from the broken microwave, it won't be hard at all.

We have it vented to the outside and that helps.