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Head-to-head · Best Compact Induction Cooktops

Duxtop 9100MC Portable Induction Cooktop vs Duxtop 9600LS Portable Induction Cooktop

Which is the better buy? Side-by-side on rating, price, strengths, and watch-outs — with the published ratings we averaged to get there.

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The short answer

Duxtop 9100MC Portable Induction Cooktop comes out ahead by a narrow margin (4.4 vs 4.3). The gap is mostly about Cooks who want one dependable countertop burner and no learning curve — renters without gas, small-kitchen cooks adding a third element, RV and dorm setups, and anyone who simmers stocks or sauces and wants the heat to stay where they set it. Skip it if deep-frying is your main use. — read the strengths below before deciding.

Duxtop 9100MC Portable Induction Cooktop
Higher ratedRanked #2 in Best Compact Induction Cooktops
Duxtop 9100MC Portable Induction Cooktop
3 sourcesall derived$84.99

The 9100MC is the plainest cooktop in Duxtop's own lineup and, in the most thorough test available, the best one. Serious Eats ran 17 portable induction burners through boiling, frying, searing and simmering and this model won outright: it boiled a gallon of water fastest at 16 minutes and drifted less than five degrees across an hour of simmering. Its advantage is restraint — physical buttons, no presets to fight, no auto-timers that cut the heat early. The ceiling shows up in deep-frying, where it could hold 375°F oil only by running flat out.

Strengths
  • — Fastest boil of the 17 cooktops Serious Eats tested — a full gallon of room-temperature water in a 4.5-quart Dutch oven reached a boil in 16 minutes
  • — Held an hour-long simmer with less than five degrees of fluctuation, the steadiest low-heat behavior in that test group
  • — Physical push-buttons instead of a touch panel, so you can wipe up oil splatter mid-cook without changing a setting
Watch-outs
  • — Ran out of headroom deep-frying: Serious Eats had to hold it at maximum power for the entire onion-ring test just to keep the oil at 375°F, and it would not push past that
  • — No boil or keep-warm shortcut buttons, so routine heat changes take more presses than on cooktops that have them
  • — The control icons are printed onto the buttons rather than moulded, and Serious Eats flagged that they could wear off over time
$84.99 · Check Price on AmazonFull review →
Duxtop 9600LS Portable Induction Cooktop
Ranked #4 in Best Compact Induction Cooktops
Duxtop 9600LS Portable Induction Cooktop
6 sourcesall derived$116.99

The Duxtop 9600LS is a single-burner 1800W portable induction cooktop, and reviewers repeatedly name it a top pick under roughly $250 on the strength of its 20 power and 20 temperature steps and a 10-hour timer that few budget units match. It boils water quickly in testing (CenturyLife saw about 3.5 minutes) and holds low simmers better than cheaper Duxtop models. Precision is not its game: the fan is loud (around 56 dB), it can whine at full power, the temperature sensor reads roughly 15F low, and it pulses at the lowest settings. On an inexpensive countertop induction burner, those are expected trade-offs rather than dealbreakers.

Strengths
  • — NYT Wirecutter's top pick after testing more than a dozen portable induction cooktops, praised as "the easiest to use for everyday cooking"
  • — 20 power settings and 20 temperature settings — the most of any model in Wirecutter's test group, and more than the 15 on the cheaper Duxtop 9100MC
  • — Temperature floor of 100°F, low enough to melt butter or chocolate without a double boiler
Watch-outs
  • — Serious Eats could not get frying oil above 350°F on it even after an hour, missing the 375°F target that the cheaper Duxtop 9100MC and the IKEA TILLREDA both reached
  • — Slower than its cheaper sibling in the same test: 18.5 minutes to boil a gallon of water against the 9100MC's 16, at roughly 1.4 times the price
  • — Its one-touch Boil preset starts a 10-minute countdown, which Serious Eats measured as about eight and a half minutes short of an actual rolling boil
$116.99 · Check Price on AmazonFull review →

Derived means the reviewer published no score, so one was inferred from their written verdict. Everything else is a number the publisher printed. How we rank.

How they stack up

Duxtop 9100MC Portable Induction Cooktop

The 9100MC and the Duxtop 9600LS split the two best tests in this category: Serious Eats made the 9100MC its overall winner, while Wirecutter made the 9600LS its top pick and demoted the 9100MC to budget pick. The 9100MC is the faster boiler and roughly two-thirds the price; the 9600LS has 20 settings to its 15 and a 10-hour timer. The Hamilton Beach 34104 beats both at heating frying oil, the IKEA TILLREDA is simpler but caps out at a 7.9-inch pan, the Nuwave PIC Gold is down on wattage, and only the Breville Control Freak CMC850 Induction Cooktop has temperature settings you can take at face value.

Duxtop 9600LS Portable Induction Cooktop

This is the product the two best tests in the category disagree about: Wirecutter's top pick is Serious Eats' also-ran, beaten there by the cheaper Duxtop 9100MC. The 9600LS has 20 settings to the 9100MC's 15 and a 10-hour timer against its 170 minutes; the 9100MC boils faster and fries hotter. The Hamilton Beach 34104 beats both on oil, the IKEA TILLREDA matches the 9600LS's boil time for far less money, the Nuwave PIC Gold is down on wattage, and the Breville Control Freak CMC850 Induction Cooktop is the only unit whose temperature readout can be trusted.

Specs side-by-side

SpecDuxtop 9100MC Portable Induction CooktopDuxtop 9600LS Portable Induction Cooktop
TypePortable countertopPortable countertop
Burners / Zones11
Total Power1800W1800W
Power Levels15 settings (200–1800W)20 (100–1800W)
Temperature Range140–460°F (15 settings)100–460°F (20 steps)
Burner Diameter8 in—
Recommended Pan Diameter5 in minimum—
ControlsPhysical push-buttonsLCD sensor-touch, child lock
TimerUp to 170 min; 2-hr idle auto-offUp to 10 hrs (1-min steps)
Cord Length55 in—
Dimensions14 × 11.3 × 2.8 in14 × 11.4 × 2.5 in
Weight6 lb7.3 lb
Model9100MC / BT-M20B—
Voltage120V / 60Hz, standard 15A outlet120V
Lock FunctionNo—
Surface—Glass-ceramic (11 × 11 in)
Warranty—1-year limited
Material—Glass
Wattage—1800 watts
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