Farberware 700W 0.7 Cu Ft Review

The Farberware 700W 0.7 Cu Ft microwave is an affordable and compact option, ideal for those with constrained space who just want to use their microwave for heating beverages or reheating their leftovers.

Heating Performance

I put the Farberware 700W through our comprehensive heating performance tests, and while it required extra time due to its lower wattage, I still enjoyed the leftovers I reheated in this unit.

Pizza Reheating

When it came to reheating pizza, the cheese was warmed and softened but not entirely melty. I liked being able to eat the pizza right away instead of waiting for any hot spots to cool down, which is a common problem I found when reheating leftovers.

Because of the lower power of this unit, I had to adjust the cooking time to 1 minute and 10 seconds. Using an infrared thermometer, I recorded mostly even temperatures throughout the slice, with readings falling in the sweet spot of 150-170°F.

Heat Map

During our heat map test, I spread marshmallow creme evenly across parchment paper cut to fit the turntable and microwaved it on high. Again, I had to add an extra minute beyond our standard two-minute test time.

The results showed a distinctive heating pattern with three concentric rings — a center spot, a larger middle ring, and a lighter, somewhat inconsistent outer ring. The top surface showed minimal color change with just a couple of golden spots, and importantly, I didn't observe any burn spots that would indicate dangerous hot zones. This pattern suggests the Farberware distributes heat in predictable zones rather than creating random hot spots, which is preferable for consistent reheating.

Heating Speed

There's no doubt that this is one of the slower units we tested. To see exactly how slow this unit is, we stuck a cup of refridgerated water in the Farberware and heated it for 45 seconds. The temperature increase fell into the middle of the pack, rising by just 76 degrees up to 120°F. While higher-wattage models in our test achieved greater temperature increases in the same timeframe, 120°F is still suitable for instant beverages or warming baby bottles.

Frozen Foods

Testing frozen foods really reveals a microwave's limitations, and the Farberware 700W showed both its strengths and weaknesses in this test. I found that this unit does well with frozen foods like Hot Pockets or breakfast burritos, but not so much with frozen pasta dishes like frozen lasagna or tortellini, which took a bit longer to cook.

I microwaved the lasagna for almost 9 minutes on the full-power cooking stage (adjusting by 1 minute and 30 seconds to account for the lower wattage). Even with this adjustment, the lasagna could have used more time. The final product was very wet with significant water pooling at the bottom of the tray after removing a slice.

The texture was uniformly mushy without much differentiation, though the edges were noticeably hotter than the center. Temperature readings showed a 76-degree spread from the coolest spot at 57°F to the hottest at 133°F — far from the even heating you'd want in a frozen entrée. A few more minutes in this unit would have produced much better results.

The Hot Pocket test went better. The cheese and sauce on the inside were properly hot and gooey. The crust came out pale and soft with a bready texture rather than anything resembling crispness. I cooked it for 2 minutes and 50 seconds, which produced evenly-heated and properly warmed temperatures ranging from 160°F to 188°F, with the inside being slightly cooler by 20 degrees, but still hot enough to enjoy.

Defrosting

One area where the Farberware 700W genuinely impressed me was in defrosting frozen meat. Using a one-pound package of frozen ground turkey, I tested the dedicated defrost function to see how evenly and safely it could thaw frozen protein.

The microwave's defrost cycle ran for 10 minutes and 44 seconds, with two helpful beeps halfway through prompting me to flip the meat. This flip reminder is a thoughtful feature that many budget microwaves skip, and it makes a real difference in even defrosting. After the cycle completed, I found that 12.5 ounces of the original 15.75-ounce package had successfully defrosted — that's nearly 80% of the meat ready to cook.

More importantly, I didn't observe any cooked edges or gray spots that would indicate the microwave had started cooking the meat rather than just thawing it. The remaining 3.125 ounces that were still frozen were in the center of the block, which is exactly where you'd want any remaining frozen portions to be for food safety. This performance earned the Farberware high marks in our defrosting test, proving that lower wattage can actually be an advantage when you need gentle, controlled thawing rather than aggressive heating.

Preset

The Farberware 700W comes equipped with a reasonable selection of preset buttons that cover most common microwave tasks. I found plenty of dedicated buttons for Popcorn, Potato, Pizza, Frozen Vegetable, Beverage, and Dinner Plate, along with standard functions for Time Cook, Time Defrost, Weight Defrost, Power level adjustment, Clock, and Kitchen Timer.

What I especially appreciated were the one-touch express buttons that start cooking immediately without requiring you to press a separate “Start” button - a small but meaningful time-saver when you're in a hurry. There's also a dedicated 30-second button for those quick touch-ups, and an auto-start feature that begins cooking as soon as you close the door after programming.

The popcorn preset proved to be a mixed bag in my testing. The Farberware offers two size options - 3.0 oz and 3.5 oz settings. Using 3.3 oz bags of popcorn, I first tried the 3.0 oz setting, which ran for 2 minutes and 20 seconds. This produced popcorn with good texture and no burning, but left too many unpopped kernels for my liking. The 3.5 oz setting ran for 2 minutes and 30 seconds but resulted in partial burning despite still leaving about a third of the kernels unpopped. Through trial and error, I determined the ideal time would be around 2 minutes and 25 seconds, which unfortunately isn't one of the preset options.

One limitation I noticed is that the compact size means popcorn bags can't rotate freely in the cavity, which likely contributes to the uneven popping. The Farberware's preset functionality is comprehensive for a budget model, earning solid marks overall, even if individual presets might need some user adjustment to achieve optimal results.

Should You Buy the Farberware 700W 0.7 Cu Ft?

The Farberware 700W 0.7 Cu Ft microwave makes sense for those with space and budget constraints that outweigh the need for speed or capacity. If you're furnishing a dorm room, tiny apartment kitchen, or office break room where counter space is at a premium, this compact unit delivers basic microwave functionality without dominating your kitchen. The even heating patterns and successful defrosting performance show that Farberware put thought into making this budget model perform reliably within its limitations. Patient users who don't mind adding extra time to compensate for the 700-watt power rating and can work with smaller dishes will find this an acceptable and affordable solution for basic reheating, defrosting, and simple cooking tasks.

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