All or nothing
I bought this for our office as a way to give our folks the ability to cook various things for lunch. It has met that goal, and it has been great to have around. I was worried that it wouldn't produce the kind of heat that a regular stove would, but it does just fine!
My one complaint and it is a significant one, is that it doesn't really have a medium heat setting. The dial covers the range but the heat it actually produces is either very, very hot, or hardly anything at all. I don't know if that is a quirk of just my unit or if that's a typical problem people face. That is a big enough flaw, to me, however, that if I bought another one, I would try a different brand.
Best One Out There
I can't say I've literally tried or tested every counter-top buffet range there is, but this one's construction is clearly superior to all competitor's products. I hesitated - Broil King? Who are they? - sounds like some cheap, discount store brand, but I bought due to the all-steel construction because all the others, made largely out of plastic, seemed seriously cheesy to me. This unit is genuinely solidly built out of all metal, nicely chrome plated with nice quality controls. It works well to boot - like a good quality stove-top. You really get a full range heat control. I use mine at holiday time when my gas range is suffering from no vacancy. This will gently warm things without burning when set at low - a true test of the quality of the unit. Cheaper units "look" like they have full range controls but in fact, you get off and screech. Thanksgiving can be ruined if your mashed potatoes "warming" on your extra burner burst into flames because the "low" setting was mostly...
Quick, hot as heck, and came with broken temperature dial
Keep in mind I am comparing this with a Rival brand (the actual brand, not just the word) solid hot-plate double burner that recently broke, one that sells on this site in fact.
This thing is basically a two-up of the the hot-coil electric ranges I grew up with in the 70's when gas ranges weren't used as much. The coils get red-hot, when I first got it I tried boiling some water (uncovered pots) just as a test. The smaller saucepan (clad-copper, Revereware) w/ 2 cups water (we're talking Top Ramen here, folks) boiled so fast I was amazed; it really wasn't that much slower than straight gas at med-high. The larger pasta pan took longer, obviously, but it's a heavy Calphalon aluminum pot so it takes a while to heat up anyway. It's also bigger than the coils so that takes longer, but even so, the thing came to a roiling boil pretty quickly. Cooking pasta at a really rolling boil, I'd probably half-place a lid on the pot to keep it really going, but nothing like dealing with...
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