Great little over the range combination oven

We were remodeling, and didn't want the GE advantium (for reasons described below). While reviewing opinions online (here and via google) it appeared the sharp 187x models were positively reviewed. We couldn't find one locally and had to mail order, price was $486.20 + $37.95 for shipping (no sales tax).

We have made whole chicken in it, lasagna, pizza (frozen via convection and leftover via microwave), and various miscellaneous items (soup, frozen dinners, etc). When using the compuroast feature to cook chicken (which mixes microwave and convection) on about a 4lb bird (which we defrosted using the same units defrost cycle) it came out ok, but would have tasted better on a convection only oven (which is our lower oven). Cooking sausage just made too much of a mess. Generally it works best for cooking (convection, microwave or both) things which are frozen and are microwave safe. The less splatter the better!

The auto cook cycles for soup or say macaroni and cheese do work, but tend to cook toward the hot end of our taste. The microwave may be a bit underpowered for an over the range unit, resulting in slightly longer microwave cook/warm times. However it's easy to control and cook just about anything provided you don't mind waiting a bit. Turning the turntable off is easy, there is a turntable off/on button close to the door it's very easy to find. Preheating does take a bit longer than we'd like, it'd have been nice to see a 220V version of this which cooked a bit faster. Thus our review finds fault both with a slightly underpowered microwave and convection heating element.

The fan is less noisy than the GE convection/microwave or advantium or a panasonic we saw. While not silent, it's not high volume. You can have a discussion near the oven while it's on without raising your voice or asking for repeats of what was just said. We specifically excluded loud fans from our search, as we didn't want a racket while cooking. The fan comes on automatically during convection or combination cooking, it also stays on until the unit is cooled which can take some time.

The style is beautiful, we had some concern about the lighting it'd provide our range, however it has been fine. Though we were disappointed that there was no night light feature.

As these units go, I believe this may be physically among the smallest (in terms of height). Which gives more space above the range. Space is sacrificed in part for the convection heating element and fan, but also the external dimensions appear to have the unit be a bit smaller in height than average. It does result in a "higher" clearance from the range top than we'd expect with other units, the price being a smaller cooking area inside the oven.

There are a ton of features, and a ton of combination features. The defrost works great, the turntable is upper deck dishwasher safe. It handles all we need for a supplemental oven, it defrosts very nicely, and in a pinch can cook half way decently as a "regular" convection oven. It shines best on roasts preventing the insides from being raw or very rare while the outside is crisp.

We are happy with the purchase and would buy it again. One reason we didn't want the advantium was due to the need to change turntables, for us if you can't just stick food in and go, it's too much trouble. With this oven if the food is larger than the turntable you just push the turntable off button and go. We haven't found this to be too much trouble. Over time we'll likely explore more, but we are very happy with our unit. There are an overwhelming number of features, and the oven does tend to interact more than we are used to (prompting with words for say number of bags of popcorn to pop, or asking the weight of a whole bird to be cooked, stopping during defrost and prompting to separate pieces). The Sharp 1874 oven comes with a 1 year warranty for parts and labor.