Review on Cheftop Induction Cooktop Portable Induction Burners 120V Digital Ceramic Top With Kids Safety Lock ,1800 Watt, Touch Sensor Control Multiple Cooking Zones & Levels (Double Burner) by Piyush Ventura

I purchased this Cheftop 1300 watt portable induction cooktop to use in my vanlife van. I chose it because its 1300 watts as opposed to most others that are 1800 watts, which requires a larger inverter to run. Here's what I found.The cooktop works really well on power cooking (as opposed to temp cooking). I used it the first few times with a Killawatt power meter to determine things like peak startup power, running power and correlation of displayed power vs actual power. When operating on power levels, I I set the unit for 1000 watts, it was pulling about 1000w. 600 was about 600,1300 was about 1300. On peak power which I could only record when the on button was selected, which always starts at 1000w, the peak was 1035, to 1050, never higher. I was able to run this using a very good quality Giandel 1200w pure sine wave inverter (red one) without an issue. I never ran it higher than 1000w though. I also gave a Giandel 2200w pure sine wave inverter, and that one will operate the cook top without limitations.So, you can also set a temperature, like if you want to fry something. I set it to one of the incremental temperatures, 325, or something like that, and fried some ripe plantains (I'm Cuban.). I kept tabs on the temperature of the oil using a digital cooking thermometer with a remote read. The oil came to temp more quickly that on my gas stove (in the house) which was nice, however, after dropping in the sliced plantains, the temp dropped to about 235 and the cooktop struggled a lot to bring the temp back to the setpoint, and actually never managed to get all the way there.I never tried the plantain test using power levels rather than temps, so I can't really sày if it would so better, same or worse than temps settings.For things like boiling water, this does it QUICK! Way more quickly than the gas range at home.In closing, the unit does work well, and my guess is at 1300 watts, it may not provide enough power input to bring the temp back up quickly. Basic cooking is awesome, and using it in the van is a way better alternative to camping stoves, pocket rocket cooking, built in propane stove, etc. The unit wipes down well, and really, has done everything I want it to do well enough to garner a hearty recommendation. However, if you want this for home use, or any other place that has conventional electrical service, go with an 1800 watt unit. They are priced close to the same as this one, but with an extra 500 watts of power, it would be a better unit overall.Oh, and the On/Off label for the power switch on mine is labeled No/Off. That has resulted in shouting NOOOOOO Everytime I turn it NO.Its a good buy and I love it!