Verdict

Considering the thrifty price tag, the Sharp KH-6I27CS00 offers great features, responsive controls, and sleek good looks.

Pros

• Stylish good looks
• Bevelled edge glass
• Responsive control
• Automatic temperatures
• Chocolate melting mode!
• Linked bridge zone
• Keep-warm function
• Great value

Cons

• Can be noisy when hot
• Auto features only available on one burner

What is the Sharp KH-6I27CS00?

Packed with cooking features, the Sharp KH-6I27SC00 induction hob offers plenty of flexibility and good looks, despite its affordable £320 price ticket. It has four zones with a bridgeable pair for large pans, individual zone timers and auto temperature for boil, fry and melt.

The bridge zone works well and the controls are responsive. Our only gripe is that the fans get a bit noisy when hot. At its attractive price, it’s a well-featured bargain buy, equipped to deal with all your cooking needs. This head-turning induction hob will compliment any kitchen and even offers a chocolate melting function. I mean, who doesn’t like chocolate?

Sharp KH-6I27CS00 – Design and features

Sporting a smooth glass surface with bevel glass trim all around, the KH-6I27CS00 looks great despite its budget asking price. Subtle grey markings across the black glass highlight the four zones and control panel, making it easy and clear to follow.

Each of the four cooking zones has nine cooking levels and a boost option, displayed as “P” on the control, for speedier results. The left side of the KH-6I27CS00 is referred to as a bridge zone, the idea being that you can link the two left side burners under a single control and put larger pans over the whole area.

Unusually at the price, there’s a range of automatic functions. You get a fry, boil and chocolate-melting function… and, if you are anything like us, the chocolate-melting function was an instant winner.

There’s no temperature sensing technology per se, but the hob calculates the power required to hit suitable temperatures for each. In addition, there’s a keep-warm function that will ensure your food is kept warm (rather than continuing cooking) if you must rush off to answer the door, for example.

Included is a timer function, available on all four zones, which will cook for a maximum of 99 minutes before switching off the zone with a beep. A child-lock mode ensures safety while cooking. For the price, the KH-6I27CS00 offers some excellent features.

Sharp KH-6I27CS00 – What is it like to use? 

 The Sharp KH-6I27CS00 has a speedy control system with an almost flawless touch-control finger response. We were able to navigate through different power levels even with a wet finger, making the Sharp a breath of fresh air compared to some competitors at this price.

The four zones are a reasonable size, but the centre of each is slightly strangely placed. On the left they’re very close together, presumably for the bridge function. That does mean you won’t get two large round pans on the left side at the same time. On the right-hand side, the zones are spaced much further apart, almost too far.

When placing a big pan or frying pan on the centre “X” of either right-hand burner, the edges of the pan get very close to the control panel at the front or hang over the edge of the glass at the rear. All four burners are the same size, so there didn’t seem to be a significant reason for the spacing other than to give the Sharp a jaunty asymmetric look. Neither side is great for large pans on a single burner, but Sharp promotes the bridge mode for larger pans or skillets, so this isn’t a big issue.

With some excitement in the lab, the chocolate-melting function delivered what it promised as the temperature slowly crept up to around 40ºC. Since there’s no temperature sensor the heat continues to rise slowly, but by 45ºC there was no chocolate left in the pan anyway. The boil function held at 100ºC and the frying mode aimed at 160ºC.

Unfortunately, the special functions only work on the bottom right-hand burner. This is the most powerful of the four, drawing up to 2300 watts.

We found cleaning the KH-6I27CS00 a breeze, with any spillage eliminated with a swipe of a damp cloth. Sharp includes a metal scraper for cleaning baked-on residues. Many brands suggest not using a metal scraper on glass top hobs, so we were  too scared to give it a try on our review sample. We assume Sharp is confident in the durability of its glass surface.

On the downside, during use, we did notice that the KH-6I27CS00 was fairly loud. When it gets hot, with multiple burners running, the fan noise and induction buzz are very apparent, although this isn’t unusual with hobs at this price.

Sharp KH-6I27CS00 – Performance

For the price, we were impressed with the power and heating speed of the KH-6127SC00. Using the boost mode, we placed our smallest 17cm pan containing 1 litre of water on the bottom-left zone. This reached our target 90ºC in an impressive 4 minutes dead, putting 1.8kW of energy into the pan. Not bad at all.

Using thermal imaging, we noticed that all four burners are almost exactly the same size, but not huge. It was little surprise then that heat-up times slowed down as the pan size went up. For the mid-sized 19cm pan on the back right-hand burner, the hob delivered the same 1.8kW of power, raising 1.5 litres of water to 90ºC in a fairly sluggish 6mins 15secs.

There was a slight improvement using our 21cm pan on the more powerful lower right-hand burner, since this managed to deliver 2.3kW in boost mode. As a result, its 2 litres of water took a reasonable 6mins 10secs to reach 90 degrees.

The bridge zone does just that, bridging the two left-hand side circular burners to create a sort of figure-8 shaped heating zone. That’s okay for large pans and skillets, although it won’t produce the even heating of dedicated burners shaped for larger, oblong or square pans. This isn’t unusual at this price and overall Sharp’s KH-6I27CS00 is a top performer.

Why buy the Sharp KH-6I27CS00?

With its affordable price and selection of good functions, the Sharp KH-6I27CS00 is a strong contender. Decent heat-up times, handy auto heat features (albeit only on one burner), bridge zone and individual timers are all great. Responsive touch controls make it very easy to use.

It has a simple, slick design that will harmonise with any kitchen style, and bevelled edge glass is a real bonus at this level. And did we mention it melts chocolate? Mmmmm.

Only the rather noisy operation and slightly odd zone positioning detract from what is otherwise a bargain budget buy in induction cooking.

Verdict

Considering the thrifty price tag, the Sharp KH-6I27CS00 offers great features, responsive controls, and sleek good looks.

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