AEG HK854220XB

Beautiful product when working - however service when not working is not premium – This is an excellent cooktop. If you never had induction, it is amazing how quickly things heat up and it is clearly much better than gas and electricity, especially the cleaning afterwards. The major flaw has been that the biggest ring only worked at 1/4 power - supposedly that is very unusual. The first response was that the service office "was instructed to say that we will have to pay for the callout if everything is fine", so we left it at that until I investigated in detail that, yes, the largest ring only heats up at a 1/4 of the rate of all the other rings (I heated 200ml in saucepans that covered the entire ring and clocked the time).

Despite that I needed to then convince the AEG technician (once the repair person came) for 20 minutes on the phone to even consider the possibility that this would be the case - I had to argue about pot size, materials of the pot etc etc etc. The repair person accepted it when I demonstrated it to him. The difference between the rings was, after all, stark.

As a result (11 months since we purchased the cooktop) they replaced the heating element and for two days we had and excellent cooktop and then the ring went to its previous behaviour. I had to send a video demonstrating the difference (boiling 200ml of water on one ring: 40 seconds, which is amazing, on the biggest ring still not done after 5 minutes. That was two weeks ago and no reply since.

What really surprises me is the quality of the service. The local repair person is fine but AEG itself has been quite another story. It may be an unusual problem but it should be fixed. I have bought premium products from other providers and any problems were fixed, quickly and simply.

Beware, This cooktop is a major disappointment – Have had this induction cooktop for 6 months. It replaces a Whirlpool which was fantastic for 8 years but unfortunately was fused by a lightning strike and whirlpool no longer offer a unit the same size, hence the change to AEG. By comparison the AEG is slow to boil except on power boost and very unresponsive particularly at low heat settings. It broke down completely after 2 months, shutting itself down every few minutes. It was replaced under warranty after a long delay and then 2 months later did the same thing. AEG blame inadequate ventilation which I note has been an issue with other reviewers. Like other users we have had cabinetry modified to provide ventilation over and above their requirements but to no avail. Then AEG wanted to blame the fact that we have solar panels and one service person suggested it might be LED lights (which we don't have). Meanwhile after 2 weeks we are getting used to our little camp stove but at least it is reliable. We have checked with friends and relations with various other brands who all report far better performance and no reliability issues. Don't be tempted with this AEG model, look elsewhere.