I think I"m going to go with a Sharp R-651ZS. The microwave is under about $150 and $350 with stainless steel trim kit for 27" cabinet. Looks nice and can put the saved $1K somewhere else.

My microwave is being installed at a lower level and so I am installing a Sharp microwave drawer as ergonomically that is the only thing that makes sense at that height. It has a tilt up control panel so I don't have to stoop or squint to control it.

Now thinking I"ll go with a drawer style since bosch, sharp and ge all seem to have standardized on the following cutout 14 13/16" x 22 1/8" x 23 1/2" Always can change in future but at least they seem to be agreeing for now. I'm not sure why two different appliance sales people were not aware of this.

All microwave drawers are made by Sharp so there is no point in paying extra for a different brand.

The 30" size will remain standard - the 24" is intended to fit in a 30" cabinet but needs a trim kit but can fit in the smaller cabinet. If at all possible I would go with the 30" size microwave drawer unless it is impossible to fit a cabinet of that width in the island.

ETA - Have you checked out the drawers in person? Their release is pretty much the same as my old countertop model. You do want to make certain that the controls are tilt up as some of the models don't have that feature which negates spending money for the ergonomic advantage of a drawer.

What do you mean all drawers are made by sharp? Are you saying Bosch and GE drawers are make by Sharp? It does not need to go in a 30" cabinet. Wouldn't that be a lot of wasted space. The cutout is only 22 1/8" wide.

I looked at the sharp with the tilt out controls and didn't like it. Makes a thunk sound when you open and had a cheap feel to it.

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Yes, All microwave drawers are made by Sharp and then branded. That's not a new thing in the appliance industry. For example, when I bought a dishwasher in 2004 many Kenmore dishwashers were made by Bosch.

There is no reason to pay more for a microwave drawer unless for some reason you want the plaque reading Bosch or Wolff on the front :-) I have no idea why you felt the Sharp was objectively cheaper feeling. I didn't find that to be so but then I knew going in that they were all made by Sharp so there might have been some kind of bias when you checked them out - not saying that is so but you seem shocked that they are all made by Sharp and I assumed it was pretty well known.

As to sizing, my drawer is going in the wall oven stack so there was no point in getting the smaller size and then using a trim kit.

"but you seem shocked that they are all made by Sharp and I assumed it was pretty well known"

^^ not common knowledge and do you have some evidence or is this just hearsay? I'm not saying it's not true but I think a more likely explanation is Sharp owns the patent and licenses it to other mfgs

Also when you say Sharp makes all drawers so there's no point in buying a drawer branded > Sharp. Whirlpool owns Jenn-air, Maytag and others yet produce products with varying levels of quality/features.

I have no reason to want someone to purchase Sharp versus other brands. :-)

I learned about Sharp being the manufacturer of all drawers from this forum so just do a search of microwave drawers and read the threads.

Based on the information on those threads, there is no difference in quality between the "brands" and no reason to spend more for one of the "brands" Sharp manufactures. The information was posted by a number of different people - including Sophie Wheeler who knows more than most of us will ever know about these kinds of things.

But of course it's a personal decision since people must be buying the other brands or else they wouldn't be manufacturing them.

I also read some time ago that MW's were made by Sharp and re-branded, and my personal research seemed to say this was true..

Anyway, we decided to go with a cabinet for our new kitchen build, with a fold-in doors to hide it when needed. Basically the cabinet will be a general size for replacing - we also have had too many issues with microwaves breaking. Ours will be located in the upper cabinet level.