I'll acknowledge that this is off-topic enough that maven's questions might get overlooked by others who could help, but here goes, anyway. The current Miele is a wonderful stove but it is also $7k. The Bosch is over $3k. Neither the Bosch nor the Mieles would be close to maven19's budget and neither would likely be available through your builder. If it were me, I'd go for the GE freestanding (PHS920) over the Samsung. Should I assume you are referring to the Samsung NE597NOPBSR? I think that model has been or is being discontinued, so you might be able to get a pretty good deal on it. From the postings here and at chowhound from owners, it seems most buyers have been pleased with their Samsungs unless or until they needed service. Samsung has a reputation for being difficult to deal with, not being good with customer support, and having difficulties in timely getting replacement parts. The NE models have only been out for 3½ years. A search here will turn up numbers of threads about the GE induction PHS (slide-in) and PHB 920 (freestanding) and the similar predecessors, the PHS/PHB925. For those who have need post-sale support or service, most folks have given GE high marks for post sale service and support. I'd pick the GE PHB920 for several reasons. I like the burner layout better. The GE has two 8" diameter burners on the left (versus the Samsung having 7" or maybe a little smaller). Those slightly bigger burners work better for me because I often cook with larger pans. YMMV. FWIW, both the Samsung and GE allow you to link the controls for the left hand burner. Niether of them is a true-bridging-element, however. With a large rectangular griddle, the area between the burners won't get as hot as right over the burners so food in the middle will take longer to cook. Another thing is, If you are into techie stuff (and maybe even if you are not), I understand that the latest iterations of the PHB920s are supposed to work with smart phones and there is (or shortly will be) a bluetooth/wifi enabled pot probe. Wile that kind of thing gets pitched to the eGullett crowd of sous vide enthusiasts, it can be very useful for regular cooking tasks. For example, you can get timer controls on burners which I would find useful useful to avoid distractions when making oatmeal or rice, or using pressure cookers. A third thing is that the GE's oven has a full-power convection heating element. Many electric ranges (like the Samsung induction ranges and the older GE inducions models) use a small 300 or 400 watt element around the fan. The GE has a full 2000 watt 240v element which seems like it could be pretty useful for multi-rack convection baking and roasting. A fourth thing for me would an aesthetic consideration. This is very much a matter of personal preference. Both the GE and Samung have brushed metal fascia, but the GE has a gray casing and sides where the Samsung is black. My personal preference is for the GE. To me, the Samsung's look of black sides and brushed metal fascia --- well it makes me think of a large microwave. This may be a bigger deal for me than others because, in my old-house kitchen, the stove has an exposed side. Others might prefer the black sides. YMMV or you might not care at all. Another stove you might want to consider for your budget range is the Frigidaire slide-in, FGIS306. It lists for $2100 but usually can be had for a lot less. (Go to the AJ Madison site, put the stove in "the cart" and you will find he delivered price is under $1500.) I would consider this stove if you would prefer a slide-in style of range and like rotary knob burner controls.

Let me try to put you mind at rest on cookware. On flaking of enamel from enameled cast-iron, you'll need to check on specific brands. I recall (but cannot find) a chowhound discussion of this last winter. The gist of it (IIRC) was that the less expensive brands were more likely to experience enamel flaking and the most typical offenders were Martha Stewart, Mario Batali and Rachel Ray brands. You will find some reports on Tramontina and Lodge pots, but most folks seem happy with them. The Tramontina 6 qt. dutch oven model was running about $50 at Wall Mart. The most recent Cook's Illustrated magazine (May-June 2013) says it performs nearly as well as brands costing five times as much (e.g., Le Creuset and Staub). There is also Lodge's own line of enameled cast iron dutch ovens which cost more than the Tramontina line but are still less than half the cost of Le Crueset and Staub. A friend of mine bought one of the "Kirkland" enameled dutch ovens from our local Costco for (I think) about $80 last winter. I do not know if that pan is made by Tramontina or Lodge, but it seems to be work very well and has not flaked on the interior. (She's using it on an old coil burner stove, btw.) So, plenty of alternatives to LC. On non-stick: the stuff is inert when it flakes. Internet research will turn up a lot of paranoid (and mostly fact-free) raving about non-stick just as there is with induction, itself. Did you know, for example, that induction cooks food in half the time of other stoves because it works like a microwave but does not contain the "low frequency radiation" which makes induction dangerous to your health, and that it may send current into your body if you use a metal spoon? That must be true because somebody posted this on the 'net! :>) To be sure, there are some real problems with NS coatings, even though poisonous/toxic flaking is not one of them. The actual problems with non-stick coatings are: (a) the chemicals used during the manufacturing process can be hazardous to the factory workers (e.g., toxic and/or carcinogenic). Those chemicals do not get passed on to the consumers who buy the finished products, but the potential risks for the workers may make your conscience uneasy about buying NS products. (b) getting a NS pan too hot (as in over 650F) will cause the coating to decompose and the resulting fumes reportedly can cause "flu-like" symptoms in people, Those fumes can be toxic to birds (but then, so can the fumes from a self-cleaning oven.. Considering that 650F is hotter than the melting point of lead, and that temps over 500F will generally degrade the slipperiness of teflon (i.e., diminish or ruin the non-stick-ability), and that that most of us would sear meat at around 450F (and wouldn't use non-stick pans for that purpose, anyway), and that most cooking oils have smoke points in the range of 350F to 400F, you can safely use NS by simply recognizing the limits and respecting them, if you like NS pans. The problem with NS on induction comes from failing to recognize how quickly induction brings a pan to heat. This will be especially problematic for those in the habit of cranking a burner to maximum, walking away for several minutes, then adding oil or whatever, and then reducing the heat. Do that with induction and you can have your empty NS pan at the melting point of lead before you know it. Heck, do that with a cast iron pan and the too-rapid rise in heat may crack the pan; there was a thread here discussing this point last summer. Get a cast iron pan to 600F and your are burning off the seasoning, as well. So, just set the NS pan to the temp you want to use, it will be at temp pdq, and you will be fine using it. As for stainless steel and ease of cleaning, that depends somewhat on the pan construction and on technique. Something thin and light is apt heat unevenly and burn food just as it would on any other stove. A more substantial pan will heat more evenly and be less likely to burn. The trick is usually said to be to get the pan hot, then add oil, and wait for ripples to appear (or wisps of vapor from the oil) before starting to cook. When you are done, you can put that SS pan in the dishwasher. For what is not cleaned it completely, a quick scrub with a sponge and some Barkeeper's Friend will easily and quickly polish it back up. Costco also has a number of decent induction capable cookware sets for less than $200. The selection seems to vary from season to seaon. Last year, I bought a 7 pot set of Circulon "Premier Professional" for $179. (2 sauce pans, a 6 quart stock pot, 3 fry pans (8" to 12") and a 3.5 qt. saute pan, plus lids.) They have anodized aluminum bodies with magnetic bases and non-stick interiors. The pans have worked very well for me on both induction and gas burners. I think there is a comparable "Kirkland" set on sale at Costco, now.) This post was edited by JWVideo on Sun, Jun 2, 13 at 14:50

We purchased 2-18 piece sets of the original Ultrex cookware from HSN 8 years ago, one set for ourselves, a second as a wedding gift for our daughter. We did this after getting a trial saute pan and 2 of their appliances. (We later purchased bake ware which is excellent.) We use these pots and pans every day with metal utensils (spatula, spoon, fork and soup ladle) and have seen some wear on the coating. There are scratches on the bottoms, some chipping where we tap spoons off, that have no effect on the cooing properties of the pans. The only stick-resistant surface that resists scratching and doesn't flake is hard-anodized aluminum. The Ultrex coatings are teflon on top of a scan-blasted stainless steel surface. Where the coating wears through, the steel prevents further wear of the teflon in the "valleys". Teflon can flake off a non-stick pan that has been overheated. Before I learned how to cook properly I ruined several inexpensive non-stick pans this way. Non-stick does _not_ mean that no oil is needed during cooking; it means less oil is needed, and cooked-on food can be easily cleaned off the surface. Oil or water is needed for heat transfer without burning. I don't know whether there were quality control issues prior to their demise, but the pieces we have are holding up fine. My complaint about Ultrex is that Innova went out of business, making it impossible for us to get pieces to complete our set. The only new items I can find Innova without the Ultrex coating and/or with metal handles. Few used Ultrex items are resold on EBay, and are sold within hours.

I found myself pondering your tests this morning as I was cooking my oatmeal on my induction cooktop in a small "slugged" Circulon Premier Pro non-stick annodized-aluminum saucepan. I'll offer the following to consider on whether to donate the A/C HA pans and what to replace them with. First, I'm thinking I may like my "slugged" annodized Circulon pans better than plllog likes "slugged" pans because my induction cooktop seems to dynamically scale power. Your test results tell me that the Miele induction range does not scale power to pan size. What I call "dynamic scaling" is this: when using a smaller pan on a larger burner (say a 7"inch pan on a burner with a nine-inch field diameter), most induction burners will output proportionally less power because there is less mass to absorb it but some induction burner electronics will scale the power up to deliver more of it when using a smaller pan. Comparing your test results for the 6" DH and 7" A/C pans with those for the 9" large pasta pot and the 8" iron LeCrueset pan, it looks like the Miele does not dynamically scale. That would seem to cause underperforming" of the smaller slug-based pans on the big burners as well as when off-center on the smaller ones. This may help you in agreeing with plllog about going for steel and iron pans. Second, a point on the slugged-base frypans: there may be a trade-off between speed and power with a more evenly heated pan for frying and sauteing. Most of us rarely need full power for frying and sauteing on induction. The slugged-base pans may take a bit longer to heat up than, say, thin steel pans or clad pans. That could be because the steel slug is conducting heat into the somewhat greater mass of the annodized aluminum body. However, that anodized aluminum is likely to heat evenly and respond well to changes in heat much the way a clad pan will do. What we want from a fry pan is mostly evenness of heat distribution and responsiveness. A speed-to-boil test is not a good test of this kind of functioning. (For example, you might not want to saute on the base of the big thin #1 stockpot even though it heats up a lot faster than other pans.) A slug in the base of a heavy-ish annodized aluminium pan is supposed to give you heat distribution and even heating as does a "clad" steel pan (whichl encapsulates the aluminum slug between inner and outer layers of steel.) You might want to experiemnt with some frying/sauteing on your Miele range before you donate the AllClad HA pans. Third, as it happens, I can directly compare a slug-based annodized induction frypan with a clad non-stick fry pan. My "slugged" Circulon NS pan set included an 8" fry pan and I received a non-stick 8" AllClad pan (a promotional freebie that showed up with in a shipment of some A/C stainless factory seconds some years ago. Haven't noticed any particular difference in speed to usable heat on induction, but, then, I never paid attention to it either. What I have noticed is that Circulon seems to me to be a bit more even and more responsive than the A/C NS pan when, say, frying eggs or bacon. However, the Circulon pan seems to weigh about 20% more than the A/C, which might account for somewhat more even heating. OTOH, the A/C NS pans do have a lifetime warranty (kind of like a pan subscription service) while the Circulons do not. Of course, this won't matter if you don't like non-stick pans or want to avoid them altogether. Fourth, on what to replace the two HA fry pans with, there can be a lot of considerations including budget and how and what you want to use them for. Generally speaking I'd say iron and steel fry pans can be relatively less expensive but tend to heat unevenly with hot spots unless we spend a long time preheating them. For fry pans in the sizes you want, you likely will get better service from a clad pan because they will heat more evenly. Good clad cookware can be expensive, and sometimes a whole lot more expensive depending on what you buy, when you buy it and from whom you buy it. Since you've already tried All Clad (meaning are okay with the handle design), you might want to look at the brand's induction capable "clad" lines. You can save some with seconds and irregulars --- check out the bi-annual factory outlet sales and/or the cookwarenmore.com site. Also, with what you've invested in the Miele range, you might want to consider a couple of skillets from Zwilling's "Sensation" line or its Demeyere subsidiary's "Proline." Judging by the piece I recently acquired, they seem to be optimized for induction, do an excellent job of even heating, and the surface polishing (tradenamed "Silvinox") seems to make it significantly easier to clean than my stainless All Clad skillets. Look for clearance pricing, factory seconds and irregulars at the Zwilling USA web site..