Hotpoint Ultimate Collection MWH33343B microwave review

The only thing bigger than the name ‘Hotpoint Ultimate Collection MWH 33343B combination’ is the microwave itself. Weighing in a hefty 31kg, this beast is heavy enough that you might need help getting it out of its box and onto your worktop.

You might need to make some extra room for it on your kitchen counter too – at 545mm, it’s easily the deepest microwave I’ve seen. On the other hand, Hotpoint has kept the door sensibly short. With the door open, the total depth of 755mm isn’t much longer than most other microwaves. It’s suitably capacious on the inside, measuring a cavernous 209x392x365mm (HxWxD).

The door is hinged at the bottom, instead of the more common left hand side. Personally I prefer this arrangement as you can get things in and out without the door getting in the way of your left elbow.

The controls aren’t so thoughtful though – consisting of a series of touch sensitive buttons and a dial. The buttons are cryptically labelled with hard to decipher icons that had me frequently referring to the manual to check which button did what. This makes it one of the fiddliest microwaves I’ve used to date.

Defrosting appears sophisticated at first. The weight-based auto defrost program prompted me to flip over my chicken breast via a prompt on a small LED display adjacent to the controls. The results were highly unimpressive, though. After the first attempt, 10 minutes in length, a frozen lump approximately 3cm in length was clearly evident just underneath the surface of the chicken breast. It was only fully defrosted after another attempt, for a lengthy 20 minute wait in total.

Cooking performance was thankfully better than the patchy defrosting. The MWH 33343B detected the presence of the included grill rack when placed on the turntable and automatically selected the grill combi option – a neat touch. A fresh chicken breast was cooked through in a short five minutes with only a tinge of dryness around the edges.

A jacket potato was cooked with only minor variations in temperature across the board. The MWH 33343B grilled a slice of bread in four minutes, producing a broadly even level of browning with only a dark patch in a corner spoiling the effect. Noise levels were noticeably loud though, starting off at 65dB and peaking at a riotous 72dB. It’s not the best choice then if you live open plan or even like to have a chat while cooking.

One neat touch was the range of included accessories. Two grill racks of differing heights are included, as well as a metal browning pan, there was also a handy plastic gripping handle for removing said grills and pan when hot. I found it particularly handy after absentmindedly misplacing my oven gloves for the umpteenth time.

The MWH 33343B is by no means a bad microwave, but its fussy controls and lengthy defrosting times are disappointing flaws for a microwave at this price. If the price drops then it might be worth considering, but for now it’s better to look elsewhere, check out our Best Microwaves 2016. Buy Now from Amazon.