Power Smokeless Indoor Electric 1500W Gr

Throw me in the group of people that saw the infomercial for this and just had to have one. Really, I own an outdoor electrical grill made by Masterbuilt that is good. We live in the Smoky Mountain area and aren't allowed to have open flame grills (HOA). A new problem comes up. It gets very cold here, it was snowing on Halloween with a 22 degree temperature. Wait until January-February. It's not unheard of to go 40+ days without going over 32. So, my one food I always want is grilled salmon. I bought this Power Smokeless Grill for the sole reason of grilling salmon 2-3 times a week, just for me. My wife doesn't eat seafood and the kids only like shrimp. I was a little hesitant because of the price. It's not that it's that high, it's that I'm the only one going to be using it. I didn't look at the size of it. I'll accept blame on that since it's something I should have noticed. While it's not huge or massive, it is as big as our Crock Pot that we make 10 servings of soup in. And it's not that big of a cooking surface. The cooking surface is 13x9, the overall grill is 20x13x9 (including lid handle). As I took it apart to remove the plastic, I noticed the fan system and the pan in the bottom that you put water in. It's a good design but there's not much magic going on here. The fan pulls the smoke away from the food, blows it downward over the water and it removes the smoke. I'm not trying to put the machine down but it is a very simplistic design. If you want to see this effect, sit a grilling grate across a sink, run water in the sink, put a hot, smoking food on the grate and turn a fan on blowing down at the food. Once I had everything put together, I decided to try it out and had two 6 ounce pieces of salmon ready to go on it. I pushed the power button ... nothing happened. Pushed it again ... a loud beep sounded. I am not exaggerating this, our 14 year old schnoodle, ran and got under a bed. She's not afraid of anything except smoke detectors, batteries start to die in smoke detectors, one beep and she's running. I won't say the beep is as loud as a smoke detector warning "chirp" but it's pretty close. I started turning the heat up, each press when they registered, let off the loud beep. That "when they registered" was 3 presses with no reaction. That's going to automatically make me question the quality. But I was hungry. It heated up very fast (less than 2 minutes), it even had smoke coming off it before I put the salmon on it. I turned the fan on, oh really, it beeps too? Maybe there is a mute button? In 14 minutes on 375, both pieces of the salmon were done, some grill marks, flaky on the outside like I like it. It was good. That impresses me and it's why I gave it a 3 star overall and 5 star on easy to use. The fan worked without a problem. It even pulls the smell out of the smoke. I noticed that only because our younger dog might as well be a pig. If he smells food, he (all 11 pounds of him) will knock any and everyone out of his way. He didn't come running until he saw me removing the salmon. I don't think it's easy to clean, it's not terribly hard but there are three parts that could require cleaning and they're stacked on top of each other. So, you have to remove each part and clean it, reassemble. I think it's average at best for value for money. The outdoor electric grill I mentioned earlier was under eighty dollars and it came with a stand and cover. Where I felt the most letdown was the "digital thermostat". What's with the beeping? A beep for every time I press the up temperature button? The fan too? And I don't even know that it's a digital thermostat. Each press makes it go up 50 degrees. It's like a dial thermostat without the dial and replaced by hard to press buttons that beep. Last, it's too big and too much trouble for me to use it just for me. I also have a Griddler that is only used for making grilled/toasted sandwiches and we have several George Foreman contact grills. This is similar to those and to me should be priced similar too. For some, this will be a good option for indoor grilling. It cooked the salmon well and was easy to use. I could see it being useful if you have 2-4 people to feed and have plenty of counterspace. It's a good product that could use some updating.