Cuisinart Griddler GR-4N

Works wonderfully but is too low-powered for some dishes – After two years of using the Quisinart Griddler a few times each week, I'm happy with it for everything except that it can't brown steak without over-cooking the meat. It just can't get hot enough. It can use only 1600W; spread over two rather large surface-area plates that would be better if they used 50% more power (1200W not 800W) each. The design wastes energy by its two old-style flat metal-tube type elements radiating in a reflective cavity under each of two removable metal plates which then get hot for supplying heat to the food...slowly. To do the jobs properly would be improved by having a total of 2400W (the maximum for a portable cooking thing plugged into a wall socket).

The plates remove easily and fit into the dishwasher easily. The reversible idea is nice, too --- each plate has a flat side and a ribbed face on the other side.

So far I haven't worked out what the use is for the two forms of operation (if all else fails I'll read the instructions book). There's no actual temperature control; it seems to work on a crude duty-cycle method of turning the elements full-on/full-off.

I put cheeze on the flat cold plate, bread on top of that, cooked bacon on top with olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers...whatever is around, then another piece of bread onto which I poor a teaspoon or so or cream onto the crusts, add some grated Parmesan cheeze, mustard, tiny bit of cayenne...place the second flat plate onto the overly-high sandwich then turn on the power and, after five minutes, the cheeze can be gathered closer to the bread and the reduced-thickness hot sandwich is finished and crispy with just the right about of moisture escaping. After making a couple of hundred of these, six minutes cooking after a couple minutes preparation, I'm very happy with the gadget and would buy another in order to get two large flat plates facing each other like that.

Great for bacon & eggs, fish/chicken fillets, perfect steaks/sausages, sandwiches – You must use both heat & reversible plate options to achieve correct heat settings. Accompanying instructions not very clear, but I've successfully cooked juicy steaks as griddle-set to sear-lid closed. Elevate more to drain fat for bacon/sausages (wooden spoon under legs works fine). Too moist to cook most meat with veges, but perfect with chicken/fish fillets. Washes easily, place plates into warm soapy water or into dishwasher. If bulky it's lightweight to move around.

it's ok for some things – bought this primarily for the waffle making feature, we purchased the waffle plates for it. I've never had another waffle maker so I can't be sure if this is good or bad, but it works well for waffles. i would never consider doing a steak on it, I can't imagine it would get hot enough. I don't see the point of doing bacon and eggs on it, when a frypan will do, but this might be the perfect machine to take on a road trip, or to have in an apartment for singles to use.

+ detachable plates are excellent for cleaning.

- it doesn't clip shut, so it won't store vertically. quite annoying.

Disappointed – I thought this would be the perfect replacement and was excited by removable plates but I'm asking for a refund. Takes far too long to heat, seems to not get hot enough to even do a sandwich efficiently, bread is so dry by time cheese is melted. Pity as it looked and sounded great.