Toshiba 1.2 Cu.ft Microwave with Sensor

Allow me to paint you a story of our time before this microwave. My husband and I have gone through exactly 2 microwaves in our 11 year relationship before landing on this one. Our first was a tiny thing made in 2004 that could barely manage cup o' noodle. It finally died sounding like the cries of a thousand whales back in late 2017. It had a good long life of burnt popcorn and cold reheated food. We went without a microwave because we were dirt broke at the time from finally becoming homeowners (oof our savings), and then my in-laws graced us with their microwave that *they* had gotten as a wedding gift in Canada in.. 1988. I used to say that the microwave was almost as old as I was until we found the manufacturing date was April 1988. Dang, the microwave was now officially one month older than me. Still had to deal with uneven cooking, burnt popcorn or half popped bags, and a defrost function that only seemed to work half the time and literally cook the food the other half. This beast of a microwave is an enigma in the fact that it has somehow survived all these years without even needing anything replaced. Honestly the microwave still "works". I can relate heavily to this microwave. After the last few years of me completely swearing off of trying to make microwave popcorn, my husband complaining about even more burnt popcorn and unpopped kernels at the same time, I finally asked if we could manage to scrape some money together to get an actual working microwave. After much debating, I was tasked with researching a good microwave that was big enough and mostly inexpensive enough. I had heard a bit about this microwave and a few others and ultimately decided on this one. The price was right, the size was perfect, the functionality was great, being able to turn off literally all the beeping was fantastic. Unfortunately the first one we got was mostly DOA and it was really disappointing, especially since I had to move a microwave that I'm sure weighed about 50lbs, I wish I was joking. Amazon took care of the return and replacement real easy and quick, and the new-new microwave came today. The first test was popcorn. Oh boy. Since everyone says "don't use the popcorn button", I definitely didn't. Unfortunately the microwave did burn the bag of popcorn at full power. So, I decided to actually use the popcorn button. I hit the popcorn button twice (setting for a 3oz bag) just to make sure it would have enough time to heat up and pop. Oh boy. I was not prepared for what happened. The popcorn actually popped! And it only took maybe a minute and a half! No burnt popcorn *and* most of the kernels were popped. Our toddler rejoiced that mommy had actually popped a bag of popcorn, "Yay! You did it mommy!" Second, I defrosted a 1lb package of frozen ground beef. Woo, that was a breeze. Set the defrost for the weight and let it go, though it did warm the edges a bit too much but it was quick and didn't cook it like our last microwaves. Third and most terrifying. Before this microwave, I had gotten used to putting a mug of coffee/tea/water/whatever to heat/reheat for a minute or more and it not even being hot-hot. I stuck a mug of water (with a few tapioca pearls in it) in the microwave to test and set it for one minute, after a short time I glanced into the microwave and discovered it was actually boiling. A very loud proclamation of "Oh my god!" rang from myself in the kitchen. I promptly called my husband over to also observe what the mug of water was doing. He also loudly proclaimed "Oh my god!" In short: I can't believe what I used to consider "normal" for a microwave. This one is more than leaps and bounds better than what we "had to just deal with" in a time of penny pinching and saving money. We're finally mostly comfortable and were in desperate need of a good quality microwave. In very short: I love this microwave.

Bought this microwave when we moved into a new place that did not already have one. It's of nice size, so it fits standard dinner plates, heaped up with food easily. It looks good and is super easy to figure out when using it for the first time. The best part- it gets your food HOT and it does so FAST! We now live a condo that has a microwave above the stove, and I use this one in my garage for warming up snacks and such while I am out there working on projects.

Have had it now for three months. Works great, perfect size. Has all the features of a under cabinet unit and sufficient power for everyday operations. There are many more complex operations with program instructions in the manual that I don’t think I will ever use. If you don’t use these often, you will need the manual for step by step instructions. Operation is quiet. Only thing I dislike is the confusing placement of the very small power level and custom cook time cycle buttons directly above the start and stop buttons. Since they are used often, these buttons should have been prominently displayed at top of keypad rather than almost hidden at bottom of keypad. They don’t even look like separate buttons. Poor location design but, overall, this is a great microwave priced reasonably.

I'd say that over the past year, we've gone through 5 different microwaves by various brands. And after experimenting with all of them, we settled on this Toshiba EM131A5C-BS model. And why? Well, to begin with, all the other Microwave units did not have a handle (and we love handles). They were all flat in the front, and you had to open the door by first depressing a child-safety lock button, and then pushing the open/close button on the front panel (please read on about the child safety locks). After the door unlocked, you were handling the doors with your hands, and eventually they got smudged and greasy, which meant more cleaning. Secondly, there is child safety lock scenario - which bugs the heck out of us. We have no children (or grandchildren) - we're senior citizens - and when we get finished microwaving a dish, we don't want to have to look around for a way to unlock a child safety lock. In one microwave (a Panasonic model) when a dish was finished, you had to first push a child safety unlock button, then you had to push another button to open the door. This is the case with many Panasonic and GE microwave units. With the Toshiba, the child safety lock is not engaged at all unless you want to turn it on. So right out of the box, to open the door, all you is grab the handle, while simultaneously pushing up on the red button (which automatically happens when you grab the handle), and wallaaaaaa - the door is open. No having to push any buttons. Furthermore, on one of the Panasonic units, no matter how much we tried, there was no unlocking the child safety lock feature - and that was a $250, much larger unit. Thirdly, this microwave is very intuitive to operate. It just makes sense. And it's attractive also. So yes, we found out that the Toshiba microwave units functioned (and looked) the best overall.

I wanted a little bit of time to play with us before I write a review. But this thing is the most amazing purchase I made of all 2025. I have been able to test out just about every future and I truly am in love with this. Air fry works amazing baking is incredible. Traditional microwave is great. I love that. You can turn the sound completely off in all aspects. It’s a nice size the trays that it comes with for baking work wonders. It’s really easy to clean. My true test when it comes to air frying is always making tater tots because they are like the hardest thing to get to cook correctly crispy not burnt. They come out phenomenal in this thing. The color fits perfectly with the rest of our kitchen. The lock feature is super easy to use. The instruction manual clearly goes over everything as well as there is a laminated additional pamphlet that comes and it goes into detail using the already programmed features of this. I seriously have never been more pleased with an appliance purchase than I was with this.

Horrible, horrible microwave oven. I'm writing this in 2026. I've used and owned microwaves for over 45 years. Logic would dictate that microwave design would improve and features would only get better after almost 50 years of international use and consumer input. INSTEAD, this is literally the WORST microwave I have ever owned (or even used, i.e. at work, at friends, etc.). I paid almost TWO hundred dollars for this. If this was just a 30 dollar pair of slippers that I didn't like I'd just take the loss and throw them away and not waste my time or your time reviewing them. But this was an expensive enough purchase where I'm going to have to dread using it everyday for several years until I can take the frustration no longer and I will upgrade to a REAL microwave and I will personally drive this one to the dump, stand in the bed of my truck and fling it out into the stench and out of my misery forever!!! I could go on for hours about how horrible this microwave is. Instead, I'll just concentrate on THREE awful, indefensible features. FIRST - There is a child safety lock on door of this microwave. While I understand that the US government now demands child safety locks on ALL microwaves, if you do your research, you'll find that many (most?) of these appliances have a method of disabling the lock. I'm an old man, who lives by myself with ZERO children living with me. There is absolutely NO reason for me to have a child safety lock on the door. On the other hand, I'm a pretty big guy and fairly strong. So the danger for me isn't a child opening the door ... it's me pulling the door open (and due to me not having to worry about it for almost 50 years), and pulling this 30 pound fragile electronic appliance OFF the counter and having it land on my much more precious, much more fragile bare feet!!! SECOND - In my almost 50 years of having a microwave, the designers have wisely incorporated ONE TOUCH COOK buttons for 1 thru 6 minutes. The only thing better than that is if they expanded this range from 1 thru 9 minutes. Instead, bizarrely, the designers of this particular unit have REDUCED the utility by only having the ONE TOUCH COOK buttons for 1 thru 3 minutes. Baffling that after almost 1/2 century, we're actually going BACKWARD in innovation. THIRD - Finally, and this is the most horrific aspect of this particular microwave ... Due to some weird button sensitivity issue, it takes between 3 to 7 presses of each button to get them to recognize the input. I thought, with my rather large hands, that it must be me and that I must be doing something wrong. But, NO, I've had several friends over and I had them 'test drive' the buttons and they ran into the same problem. Also, I've found that the buttons on the left side of the keypad are much more susceptible to requiring multiple pushes for the keys to respond, than the right side. NIGHTMARE SCENARIO --- With my last GOOD microwave, when I wanted to cook something for 4 minutes it was literally; - Place the item in the unit, close the door, press the 4 button once, wait til cooked, open the door, enjoy eating. With this HORRIFICALLY BAD microwave, the exact same theoretical scene plays out as: - Place the item in the unit, really firmly close the door (because of the nuisance child safety lock), press the Cook Time button (FAIL), press the Cook Time button again (SUCCESS), Press the 4 button (FAIL), Press the 4 button again (FAIL), Press the 4 button again (FAIL), Press the 4 button again (SUCCESS), Press the 0 button (FAIL), Press the 0 button again (FAIL), Press the 0 button again (FAIL), Press the 0 button again (SUCCESS), now, for the last 0 of the 4:00 quest ... Press the 0 button again (FAIL), Press the 0 button again (FAIL), Press the 0 button again (SUCCESS), however, due to its sensitivity, the unit felt like you pushed the last 0 button too successfully, so it thinks you want to nuke your meal for 40:00 minutes, instead of 4:00. There is no way to undo this or to go back, so you have to cancel it and start over again. The best part is, it takes THREE button presses on the CANCEL button, at this point I think that I'm just being mocked by the microwave ... THEN you literally have to do the whole procedure again, button by resisting button. Then, the chef's kiss, when you finally do everything successfully and the microwave beeps, indicating that your 4 minute entrée is finally ready after around 10 minutes of dread, if you're forgetful like me, but really strong like me, you'll forget, while opening the door, that there is now a newfangled child safety lock and the door won't open, but the force of your pull instead pulls the entire microwave unit over the counter and your heart stops temporarily as you grab it with both arms to keep it from falling off the kitchen counter! It's a wonderful life!

We absolutely love our Toshiba 8 in 1 airfryer microwave! We were able to eliminate several appliances and create more space in our kitchen because of the multipurpose aspect. It is easy to use. Switching back and forth between each function couldn't be simpler. It has a nice look as well. The only thing we would want different would be the handle as it needs to have a slight lift for the child lock when you open it. But it doens't detract from our enjoyment of it's use. We highly recommend this product!

I've had this device for about 2 weeks now and I have to say it has definitely worked out great. The controls are easy to use and understand. It is solidly built. The fit and finish is excellent. As some reviews mentioned, the sound level is more than my old microwave, but not as much as my old air fryer. I have a learning curve to get to know all of its capabilities, but I am very satisfied with it so far.