You will come to hate a radiant top range. Everything burns/sticks to it.

...and then you simply wipe it down with a paper towel and a squirt of cleaner, or in an extreme case start with a window scraper. Then and you'll be thankful that you didn't have to deal with grates and/or burner pans and the nooks and crannies that come with them.

Sorry, but IMO for its many faults, when it comes to cleaning only thing that beats radiant ceramic is induction ceramic.

You will come to hate a radiant top range. Everything burns/sticks to it.

"You will come to hate a radiant top range. Everything burns/sticks to it."

seriously, I can tell you why whatever you are using is wrong and why you will "come to hate it.". I was not asking advice on what type, but about makes and models within a type.

Sorry people haven't been more helpful. I can not give model no. but not long ago our daughter bought a Kenmore glasstop and she is very pleased. She bought it in a Sears scratch & dent.

your information in your mental model is more than ten years old.

".... Ambivalences: convection. yes, it is a value, but it is another thing that can go wrong in the ever decreasing durability of all appliances...."
Convection is worth it. A fan is a fan. They have been around for a long time. Fans are not new technology.

"Any particular dogs or particularly well regarded ones of current models?"
Yes. Anything radiant is seen as a dog, as we enter the year 2012.
Induction is well regarded.
Ikea has a cooktop for $900.

There is no advice available about any one radiant being better than any other one. A heating coil is a low technology device. Think of a toaster. Making heat is the easiest thing to do with electricity.

At that price point, you may not get a convection oven. I found those went closer to $1K.

When I was looking:
Kenmore
GE
Frigidaire
Samsung

You may want to check out places like Sears Outlet if there's one near you, or the scratch and dent overstock area of an appliance retailer. I got a floor model induction for the cost of a smoothtop. There is a small scratch on the side, but it doesn't show. We were replacing an old coiltop electric.

Your problem is it's a mass market product where the average consumer won't spend countless hours on research, let alone post comments on an appliance forum post sale.

Sounds like you've already read CR, so no reason to point out that overall there's not a huge variance in ratings across the segment.

IMO don't downplay the value of convection. I was never intrigued until I actually owned/used it. Now even my toaster oven has a fan. The upgrade is definitely worth a few bills. Again, "IMO."

We currently have a GE profile, slide-in electric radiant, and it has been solid for the past 5 years. It does have convection which I like, but wasn't a deal breaker. The glass looks brand new thanks to Cerma Bryte and my scrapper. I love looking at it when it is clean...which is very easy.

I cook alot and have NEVER burned a meal or had anything stick. It isn't that difficult to cook on when you know what you are doing. Good cookware helps too. Since it would have cost $10,000 to bring a gas line to our home it was a no-brainer to stick with all electric.

At the time the oven door felt the most solid and I liked the warming burner (which I never use).

Hi tl45,

I think we have something similar to what you are looking for. A perfectly solid, ceramic-top electric range. It's a Samsung FTQ353IWUX and the matching OTR microwave is SMH9187ST.

I can't remember how much we paid, but I'm pretty sure we got a deal off the currently advertised (on AJ Madison, anyway) $891, since we got all of the appliances through them. It seems to meet your criteria, but it does have convection. Easy to clean top. I don't know why people say smooth tops are awful when it comes to cleaning. I mean, if it's that bad, just spray some Windex or 409 on there. Sheesh.

We've had the pair since last October and no problems yet. I especially like the bottom warming drawer as it has come in handy during parties. We had one install niggle with the microwave, but it functions just fine and has a pretty good fan. Good luck!

We have had a GE Profile and now have a Whirlpool Gold glass cooktop (separate GE Profile oven and micro. The GE was definitly higher quality than the Whirlpool Gold and the cooktop cost about $1300 versus less than $600 for the Whirlpool at their ebay clearance center. The GE oven has been pretty good but the electronic switches got unreliabe and occasionally need us to press every button just to get an oven light on or even to turn the oven on at times. I think this is a problem that several manufactures have had from the self cleaning heat. Had to have that serviced once. The downdraft fan on the Whirlpool is a joke. Speed control broke after about a year and highest speed is not effective. Cleaning one requires a lot of elbow grease if stuff burns on. It happens a lot if cooking grease gets baked onto the bottom of a skillet for instance.

thanks to those of you who actually bothered to read.

As far as the rest who insist I need somethign different than I asked I am certain I could walk around you house and explain why you purchased the wrong type and technology of half the things in your home.

And as those with ceramic cooktops here have noted, I know dozens of people with smooth ceramic/glass cook-tops and not one who complains about cleaning the top.

As far as induction there are a lot of reasons not to get one. They are absolutely not appropriate in units that may be converted to rentals.

davidro1, I think you don't realize you are recommending setups that are known to be not just higher costs going in (literally 3x), but much higher maintenance and failure costs.
Induction on a range top is something fools buy. those expensive electronics on an induction over a range are going to be cooked and destroyed much faster especially with 900 to 1,000 degree oven cleaning cycles. In a kitchen with three or four linear feet of counter, you are not going to place a second cooktop, and this is NOT a remodel, as the cabinets and counters are in excellent shape.

You are actually recommending a setup that is three times the budget, and and a known higher failure higher repair cost setup.

Respectfully some of you have very poor forum etiquette. I did not post the question: "induction, ceramic or gas, what are your thought?"

This is a city pied-�-terre that I may well be converting to rental, and there are LOTS of things I am doing to keep in budget and maintain a low likelihood of future high maintenance. I am not going to leave the bathroom in a bad state because I blew the budget on a $2000 induction range that will have half the lifetime and or double the repair costs of $650 glass top range with manual knobs and self cleaning, with the possible addition of convection.

Combination appliances are a MISTAKE, in my long long experience. I never understood why someone would buy a TV with a disk player in it since one lasts five years and one lasts 15. I can tell you that an range with an attached microwave is a huge mistake because I am guessing that 90% of the people who bought places with those in them found they had huge problems. Microwaves last half as long. Essentially you have to pitch the entire range/microwave or pay $500 to repair an five or ten year old appliance that should last 20 years.the same is very likely true of induction on a range.

I don't need to be sold on induction when I know that NO rational person would put an induction topped range in installation I am dealing with (likely future rental, specific budget).

Anyway for those who mentioned samsung or GE: thank you. that seems to be the consensus elsewhere as well. the models you mention with convection come identical without it for about $100 less, so that is helpful.

For something that's a potential rental, I agree, you would not want induction! As I've posted before, only one person I've met IRL even knows what is induction.

Good luck!