May 07, 2001 05:12 PM
7033 Views
The bard of Avon said, ''A rose by any other name.......'' . With due apologies to him, I would like to speak of a lemon instead of a rose. Yes friends; I have a lemon called the BPL 900T.
But let me start at the beginning. One cool December evening, some 5 years ago, I proudly carried home my new possession, my purse lighter by about Rs. 25000. The decision to go in for this particular model was based on a simple fact: IT WAS THE ONLY MICROWAVE OVEN WE WERE AWARE OF THAT HAD A CONVECTION FACILITY. For the uninitiated, this just means that this elephant (white or otherwise) can also work as a regular baking oven.
When we actually started using it we found that, like an out-of-condition athlete, it needed to stop for breath after 5 minutes of hard running. While a brief pause for breath may be tolerable, a breath of almost an hour was positively asthmatic. After a couple of calls to the venerable BPL and a visit of their mechanic, it was discovered that a cooling fan was not fitted properly and was getting jammed. This resulted in the overheating of the control system. Who was I to complain when the appliance was failing due to overheating? Didn't I buy it to create heat in the first place? But hold it. That was just the beginning. The contraption just loves to see the face of the BPL mechanic at regular intervals. There has been a time when it left us to go and spend a couple of weeks at its mother's (BPL) place. It has even had a heart transplant (change of magnetron) once. I am not the one who calls it the heart. The manufacturers themselves say it is the heart of the machine. And I can tell you that a heart transplant is not a cheap proposition. Even as I write this I have a complaint pending with them since 24th February.
I could go on at length but let me spare you the sob story and make this a little more balanced.
PROS:
When it works it does a very good job both in microwave mode as well as convection mode.
The user panel is very easy to understand and use.
Maybe that's why they have a child lock (A combination of few keystrokes) to disable it's operation.
It has a very good capacity. Probably the largest available in India.
They have microwave cookery classes and an informative periodical for users.
In general a microwave oven is invaluable for warming up food before serving, especially when the lady of the house goes out to work.
CONS:
Very unreliable. Regular breakdowns.
The child lock is ridiculous. A child does not need to know the combination to unlock it. Just turn off the wall switch and turn it on again and PRESTO! the lock is open again.
After following up with them for the first few months, the classes never actually materialized though they never stopped promising that we would be included in the next batch.
Service is very poor. They probably hope it will start working before the mechanic gets to you. Moreover, persistence is an important virtue to possess if you need to contact them on the telephone.
