SaltonSingle Stainless Steel Coil Portable Electric Cooktop, 1.36 kg, Stainless

It works just like the way we wanted ! I have tried a GE "hot plate " before and it took much longer to bring water to a boil. This stove ? Man ! this is a real stove. We are doing all our deep frying jobs on it now. It works just like a regular stove. It looks better with a nice stainless steel finish, it has controls for different heat settings (although we use the highest all the time) and has indicators. It is easily portable (not that heavy) - what else to say ! One of the best purchases I made in this section. I got it about a month back and very satisfied until now. Would I recommend this ? - Absolutely with a capital A. I have read reviews about this product before buying it and I am happy that I believed those guys who wrote them and want to thank them . I usually don't bother to write reviews , but this product forced me to write one. Man this is good and its makers deserve a pat on the shoulder. They deserve to get business.

Update - 9/16/2013 - This was working well for me in my daycare, and then the other day it just quit working for no apparent reason. I am changing my rating from a 4 to a 2 for this reason. I really can't recommend it.[original review] I use this burner daily in my daycare and it works great. I cook all of the kids' meals on it and it does everything I need it to do. I am very pleased with it. My only complaint is that it's hard to clean beneath the burner if food boils over or spills. (Maybe I just haven't learned the trick for removing the burner?)

It is not easy to buy a reliable hot plate/cooking range.Over the years I used many different brands and models, and most of them are cheaply made, poorly designed and stop working after a too short period of time.Having read a lot of reviews, I noticed, that many complaints are related to temperature control.In some models, temperature controller turns off heat too soon, resulting in prolonged time to boil a kettle of water.In other models, temperature controller turns heat off too late , even on “low” setting, resulting in food being boiled over.Of the two, I selected the second type. Under no circumstances, I want to see a controller cycling on and off, when I set it at “max”. If it is set on “max”, it means that the heat shall be “on” all the time.Finally I settled for Canadian Toastess, single-coil, 1000W, stainless steel range, as the one which boils water well.It has 43” long cord with 3-prong plug, 6”DIA coil, and 10”x10” foot print. The knob has four temperature settings between Max and Min. There are two control lamps: “red” –indicating that the range is plugged in a live outlet and “green”-indicating whether the heat is on or off.The complaints were that on setting “1” it still does not cycle off-on frequently enough to enable simmering. I found that there is enough space between settings: “1” and “MIN” to enable low heat operation.Pros:1. Provides continues heat on MAX.2. Small 10’x10” footprint.3. Stainless steel body4. Elegant “European style” design. Pleasure to look at. I hate eyesores designed by “engineers”.5. Two control lamps. Many other models have only one or none.6. Audible sound on switching between heat on-off.Cons:1. The marking on the temperature control knob rubbed off completely after 2 months. I had to make my own markings with white permanent marker.2. Difficult cleaning under the coil.

I read the reviews of all of the other single burners and this one had only two reviews at the time I made the decision to purchase. The reviewer who said they used it for 6 months to cook deer meat is the one that convinced me. I just received this today and decided to cook sloppy joes out on my patio. Unfortunately, I only had a pound of frozen ground beef, so I put it in a skillet on top of the Toastess burner (set to the highest setting) and waited to see what would happen. Surprisingly enough, the Toastess began browning the frozen ground beef almost immediately. It was cooking as well as, if not better than, my regular stovetop.It didn't take long at all for the frozen ground beef to cook enough for me to break it up with my spatula. As I continued to cook it on the highest level and added water to the ground beef, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Toastess was able to maintain it's cooking temperature.Once the beef finished cooking and I added all of my ingredients, I changed the temperature setting from MAX to #2 (there are 6 settings 1 through 5 plus MAX) to let the beef simmer and the Toastess handled simmering very well too.I can't rave enough about this product. The stainless steel finish looks great and it cooks as well as it looks. I wish I could give it a rating higher than 5 stars because it amazes me that a product this inexpensive performs so well.Very happy with my purchase!

This range worked about four months and then it just quit. It was slow to heat and did not get very hot but it did the job of boiling water for ramen and hot dogs ok. I had to scratch markers on the knob to set 'simmer' etc because there is no marker on the base or the knob. Reasonably easy to clean, at least outside of the element area. The one star is due to the short life of the product.

For the money it's good. Although it did burn out after @ 8 months. And I didn't use it for @ 4 months which was summer time. (I used it to warm a stock pot with @ 20 quarts of water during the cold of winter for goats.) Let me note that I kept the heat setting about half way and on continually, in the garage, out of the weather. It worked goodly. I may buy another. BTW, I looked for replacement elements online, but it's easier to just buy a whole new unit.

My kids cannot tolerate too much "beach" food so I got this little burner. We made pasta, eggs and pancakes in our room at the beach and it worked out great. I read and read all the reviews and I can assure you this one brings water to a boil fast. Actually, it got a little too hot at some points and I had to turn off the power to let it cool. But that was no big deal. Rather too hot than not hot enough. Highly recommend.