Cooktops

Lifetime score

Our overall score combines test performance (how well the appliance works) with predicted reliability (how likely models from the brand are to remain free of faults) and owner satisfaction (how likely owners of the brand are to be very satisfied).

We’ll only recommend appliances you’ll love to own, that work well and keep working well for a long time.

Test performance

It’s no good if a product lasts for several decades if it doesn’t work well in the first place. A disappointing product will soon become unloved and unwanted. For this reason, our independent lab testing still forms an important part of our overall lifetime score.

Our cooktops test includes:

Cooking performance

We conduct 3 tests to assess the performance of the cooktops:

First we make white sauce on the simmer-burner or element with the lowest setting. This tests the cooktop’s ability to perform at a low temperature for a long time.

Next we cook rice on the medium-sized burner or element. This tests the "turn down" capacity of the hob and whether the cooktop can maintain a suitable heat at the lowest temperature setting.

We then use a beef and vegetable stir-fry to see whether the cooktop can deliver continuous high heat.

Ease of use

The ease of use rates the ease of using the controls, ease of cleaning, and the user-friendliness of the cooktop layout.

Survey data 101

In our annual reliability and satisfaction survey, consumers tell us about faults that have left an appliance they own unusable or mean they’ve had to change how they use it. We also ask them how satisfied they are with the appliance. We use their data to produce our predicted reliability and owner satisfaction scores.

We use a statistical test to rate the relative performance of each brand. Compared to data we have for all products (of the same type) in the survey, we rate each brand with excellent, good, average, poor or terrible reliability and satisfaction. You can compare the rating of different brands for the same product type (for example, the reliability rating for Miele and Haier washing machines), but you can’t compare the results for different product types (for example, satisfaction of LG TVs and Samsung phones).

We analyse brands that get at least 30 responses in our survey. That means there are some brands we can’t analyse because we don’t have enough data. For those brands, we assume they have average predicted reliability and owner satisfaction.

Our data is based on responses for 1525 cooktops or hobs in our 2022 survey.