Best Microwaves of 2026

Same 1,000 watts as our top pick, a 12.5-inch turntable that genuinely takes a dinner plate, and a shorter stack of bills at the register. The Farberware gives up a tenth of a cubic foot of cavity and stands on a 20.2-by-16.54-inch footprint that's actually a little deeper than the Toshiba's, so don't buy it expecting to save counter — you're saving on features.

What goes missing is the sensor. There's no humidity probe here, so reheating is a matter of pressing a minute, checking, and adding thirty seconds, which is how everyone cooked before sensors existed and still perfectly workable. In exchange you get ten power levels with multi-stage cooking, six one-touch options including popcorn and potato, defrost by weight or by time, and a big readable LED. That's the right place to economize, and it's why we point first-time renters and basement-bar owners here rather than at something flashier.

Seven hundred watts is the trade you make here, and it's worth being honest about the cost: a plate of leftovers runs a few minutes longer than it would in the 1,000-watt picks, and the middle of a cold casserole needs a stir. What you get back is a body 17.3 inches wide, 13 deep, and 10.2 tall at just over 20 pounds — small enough for a shelf above a desk, the top of a micro-fridge, or the sliver of counter left beside the coffee maker.

The push-button door release is another detail we appreciate. On a crowded counter, a door that pops open instead of swinging wide on a handle is easier to live with, and it won't clip the person walking past. Inside there's a 10-inch turntable and six preset buttons for popcorn, potato, pizza, frozen vegetable, beverage, and a dinner plate, plus a child lock and a 30-second express key that does most of the real work.

For a small household that mostly reheats — coffee, soup, a bagel, the kids' mac and cheese — that's plenty, and the price makes it an easy second oven for a basement or an office. It is not a cooking microwave: a platter won't fit and nobody is roasting anything in it. Buy it for the cubic feet you have rather than the ones you wish you had, and it does its job without complaint.

Sixteen and a half inches of turntable is a different class of appliance. At 2.2 cubic feet and 1,200 watts, the Sharp is the only pick here that swallows a wide casserole dish, a holiday platter, or two dinners reheated side by side, and that changes how the appliance gets used — it stops being a reheater and starts covering for the oven. If your household already treats the microwave as the second cooking space, nothing else on this list comes close on interior room.

Inverter cooking is the technical half of the appeal. Rather than pulsing full power on and off at lower settings, the oven holds a reduced, continuous output, which makes defrosting and gentle reheating noticeably more even; the sensor cook and melt/soften functions lean on the same idea. It also runs quietly for a unit this size, with a low hum instead of the rattle that annoyingly shows up in this category, and the bright LED interior light means you can see what's happening without opening the door.

The catch is the footprint: 24.4 inches wide, 19.6 deep, and 33.7 pounds. That depth is more than many counters leave once a toaster and a canister sit down, so measure twice — there is no wedging this into a gap built for a 1.2-cubic-foot oven. Give it a dedicated stretch of counter and premium money, and it's the most capable machine here.

Eleven hundred and fifty watts for less than the Sharp costs is the pitch, and it holds up. The GE packs that power and a 1.6-cubic-foot cavity into a body 21.3 inches wide and 18.7 deep, so it slides into the space many mid-size ovens already occupy, while cooking visibly faster than the 1,000-watt picks. A 13.63-inch turntable takes a dinner plate with room to turn, and the stainless front doesn't look like a compromise. At 39 pounds, plan on a second pair of hands to lift it onto a high shelf.

Sensor cooking is the reason to choose it over a cheaper 1,000-watt oven. The moisture sensor adjusts time as food heats, so a plate of leftovers or a bowl of soup comes out hot without you standing there testing it with a finger, and the ten power levels let you drop low for melting butter without babysitting. Eight convenience settings and one-touch express keys are laid out plainly enough that nobody needs the manual, which matters more than it sounds when two people share a kitchen and only one reads instructions.

Of everything here, this is the one designed to disappear. The GE Profile is built-in capable: with the matching trim kit it drops into a 24-inch cabinet opening, and the 24-inch width is sized for that opening rather than for the 1.1-cubic-foot cavity behind it. If you're finishing a kitchen and want the appliance off the counter entirely, this is the only pick that answers the question — the rest of these are microwave ovens that sit on a surface and stay there.

The smart half is real, if not essential. Wi-Fi with Alexa and Google Assistant control means you can start or stop it without touching a keypad, and scan-to-cook reads a package barcode and sends the cooking program to the oven, which is genuinely handy for the frozen entrées a microwave gets used for. Sensor cooking handles the rest of the reheating, and the one-touch express keys and four convenience settings cover the everyday presses without going near the app.

The practicality check is worth running before you fall for the look. It's 35 pounds and 24 inches wide, so it's a cabinet appliance wearing a countertop body, and the trim kit is a separate purchase on top of an already premium price. It also delivers 1.1 cubic feet of cavity, the same as the Farberware at a fraction of the money — you are paying for integration, not capacity.

So the recommendation is narrow and we're comfortable with that. If a cabinet opening and a clean counter are the goal, the GE Profile is the pick and the trim kit is part of the budget. If the microwave is going to sit on the counter anyway, the Toshiba gives you a larger cavity and sensor cooking for far less, and the smart features will go unused within a month.

The door won't open until you press Stop, and that tells you most of what you need to know about this Frigidaire: it's a big, plain, inexpensive microwave with a couple of habits you have to learn. Get past that and the numbers are the story — 1.5 cubic feet of cavity with 1,000 watts and a 13.25-inch turntable, at a price that most of the compact 0.7s here ask. It holds a casserole, a full dinner plate with sides, and the white interior makes it easier to see what's browning than the dark cavities elsewhere in this group.

The rest of the controls are similarly old-school. There's no 30-second add key, so the punch-in-extra-time habit you've built on other microwaves doesn't transfer, and the auto-cook menus cover the basics — popcorn, potato, pizza, frozen vegetables, beverage, reheat — without much ambition. The mirror-finish display is bright and easy to read from across the room, and the child lock is there for households that want it.

We think of it as the capacity play. If you need a big cavity and the budget is fixed, this is the most room you'll get for the least, and the trade is polish rather than performance. Buy it for a basement kitchen, an office break room, or a rental where the microwave takes abuse and nobody wants to worry about a touchscreen, and its plainness stops being a flaw.