I'm happy with my Weber Summit Silver bought about 6 years ago. This model has 4 burners arranged left-to-right, by the way. Performance is good - my only gripe is that the separate side burner to the right of the grill isn't very adjustable (though I rarely need it for anything). While I could probably get choosey and find a more perfect grill, I would first look at Weber's higher-end because I'm thrilled with Weber's customer support. While performing way-overdue maintenance, I called them to order some replacement parts for items that had understandably worn out or corroded over time... They sent me replacements at no charge. No questions about warranty periods or anything like that. I called them intending to purchase parts, but it seemed they volunteered to replace them on the assumption that Weber products are designed to last forever. So I'm a loyal customer of Weber's. We live not far from the pacific ocean, the grill is outside, uncovered and facing the sea, and we use it 2-3 times a week year-round. No complaints.

I've been looking at the built-in Firemagic and Lynx grills and while I like a lot the Firemagic from a technical point of view, I can't get over the 2" wide stainless steel band around the edge to support the grill on the counter top. It seems this should be hidden under the counter top (granite, tile, etc) but all the pictures and displays I've seen show it sitting on top. What were they thinking? Why would anyone want that 2" band around the grill? It would look horrible sitting on a nice counter top. The Lynx and others have a much nicer way to seat the grill on a built in base. Am I being too picky?

I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.

Wow! The people writing to Amazon seem to be justifiably outraged. Fortunately, my 30-inch (not built-in) Lynx Pro with dual Pro-Fire burners has worked well, once sorted out. This was purchased through an appliance store in 2015. I do not use it often, since I like to thoroughly clean it each time, but it has been reliable when it needs to be. Most of the complaints on Amazon seem to be earlier than this, so maybe Lynx made some needed design or fabrication changes. On initial testing after delivery, one of the two screened burner assemblies on my grill would heat up and then develop a fuel-air leak causing it to pulsate. Lynx promptly replaced this assembly. Once I was satisfied that the burners were both working correctly and had good alignment with the gas jets, I extended the flame range per the directions in the supplied manual. This involves turning a screw in the control shaft for each burner to tune the low end of the gas flow range. Flow should be set to achieve the lowest stable flame. In comparing this to other options, such as its low priced Kenmore predecessor, one should consider that the imputed interest on the cost of the Lynx, using the real CPI (see http://www.shadowstats.com/) would allow purchase and throwout of a minimal Kenmore gas grill every few years. However, the Kenmore is relatively uncleanable, so if one likes cost-effective "crusty" cooking, he should stick with cheap grills. The all stainless steel Lynx is easy to clean (albeit time consuming) and the grill assemblies can be soaked for as long as needed to ease complete cleaning without any fear of rusting. kas