I got one and I am blanking on the name at the moment. It is not one of those 2. It came with a "converter" of sorts that you use when your pan is not made for induction. It is a metal disk with a handle that you put under your cookware to conduct heat. It works fine for my pots, but not my pans. Anything that I would normally do in a pan, I have been doing in my oven instead after ruing a few dishes trying to get it to work. For pasta, rice and other pot type cooking, it works fine.

I got a Fagor portable double induction cooktop (just happened to be on sale at a local kitchen store) to use during our remodel and love it. It's 1800 watts and boils water for pasta in no time. Be aware, there is a fan - so it does make some noise, but not too much. The other thing I found out after I purchased it is if you are using one of the "burners" on the highest power level (6)you can't use the other one at all. IOW, the total power level of both burners cannot exceed 6 at one time. The other thing I leaned the hard way was that I can't use the MW and the induction cooktop (or my toaster for that matter) - it pops the breaker. Guess it takes a lot of power. I will definitely use this even after the remodel outdoors next to the grill to cook corn, etc.

dianalo, thanks for the response, i think the one u got was max burton, i saw that one a few sights and it got good reviews, but some people said there were hot spots in center of pan and things did not cook evenly, did u have that same experience??

thanks drdannie, i did see the fagor single, which is what i am looking for, a single. glad to hear the 1800 watt boiled water for pasta. did yours cook evenly?? im not worried about the fan noise, i understand they all have one which is needed to keep the "guts" cool.

I also have the Fagor single and I've been using it in my temporary kitchen. Works great! It does throw the breaker as mentioned above if using with too many things at once.

I bought a Berghoff 1600 watt unit from overstock in March 09. I kept it packed until our demo started in May'10. I love mine. It's kept things pretty normal around here. Now that we're nearing the end ( I hope!), I regret that I didn't buy 2. Spaghetti would have been easier with 2 burners.

The plastic case on mine has broken, I think my mom may have dropped a cast iron Dutch oven lid on it. Other than that it's worked great. It's a bit loud, but quieter than a microwave.

I was eyeing the double, but now that I read here about the power level, I'll pass. I guess it really is intended as a buffet warmer, handy for parties, not for serious cooking.

Ditto the power drain. If you can get your MV or toaster on a different circuit, you'll be in great shape.

I have the Max Burton single burner unit--bought it a year and a half ago from an Internet supplier. Saw an episode of the PBS cooking show that tries out experiments; they recommended it as being best for the money. Have no idea what is on market now. I wouldn't worry about hot spots. It worked just fine, even with a couple stainless steel pans that are 18/8 quality (not recommended in manual, I think it has less iron in it). I did a lot of warming up of dishwashing water--very fast in a big old enamel stockpot. Faster than the gas burner in the camper. Also works with cast iron. Haven't found a conversion plate (described above) but would like to try one. I think someone made a posting about putting a cast iron fry pan or handled griddle on the burner and putting a nonferrous pan onto that and it heated the inner pan. Haven't tried this myself yet.

Just remember that when a pan is really hot, it can melt plastics, including the housing on the unit itself. I have one ugly melted spot on lip of housing. But we've enjoyed the unit and now use it as an auxiliary for the range, when we need more burners or need to separate cooks. Because our GE glass cooktop range cautions against making sugar things because hot sugar can erode the hot cooktop, we've used the induction burner atop the range for jelly, etc. Yes, it would be good to use it outside on deck to boil water for corn on cob, etc. I wouldn't call these uses "non-serious" cooking. I sometimes use it for boiling teakettle but new range is better boiler than old one so I haven't used induction for tea for quite a while.

Yes, don't put it on a circuit with any other big power users--coffee pots, microwaves, irons. We used it in camper trailer during renovation time and I did a lot of hiking into the house to restore power after forgetting and running two heat-generating items simultaneously despite single orange power cord to the camper.

One caution: the power cord is not flimsy but big and husky; we now keep the unit in a shallow drawer and there is little room for anything else in the drawer because the cord takes up big loopy space; cannot detach it either.

The fan turns itself off when the face is cool enough, even if you turned unit off much earlier. Fan is quiet enough for me to hear radio while it is running, but it is an extra sound in the room.

Unit turns on at medium setting; you beep it higher or lower from there. It's really neat to see the burner instantly change colors when you beep the buttons to a lower number. If I recall correctly it will detect when a pan boils dry and turns itself off. Never actually tried this so can't verify.

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Based on my experience with the Max Burton single burner unit, I decided to go looking for an induction range; couldn't find a moderately priced white one, darn!

Yes! It is the Max Burton. It has a tendency to have hot spots but I am not sure if that is the pan or the burner's fault. In any case, it is not great with my pans. Mine are not made for induction, so I rely on the converter thing. It is possibly better with induction friendly cookware. It does work well with my pots on the converter though. I think the larger pans are less uniformly flat on the bottom. The manual also says you lose some of the heat with the converter than if it were on directly.