Great oven, even baking, controls leave a bit to be desired
4/5
We bought this to replace an 18 month old Neff that gave disappointing baking results due to its uneven heat distribution.
The new Hotpoint Class 6 is superior in every way: better looking, features like a soft close door and pyrolytic cleaning, and (finally) nice, even cooking, although we've found that food tends to need a touch longer than previous ovens, but it's a small price to pay. An oven thermometer shows that this oven keeps the temperature bang on what you've set it to, unlike most ovens that are often up to 20 degrees too high or low!
My one criticism are the controls. We're no technophobes and knew what we were letting ourselves in for from other reviews, but I'm sure other people may be a bit flummoxed by the touch controls. While most ovens let you change the temperature and program at any point during cooking, with this oven you must set everything "up front" - turn the oven on, select a program, then the temperature, and then the cooking time. Once you press Start it's more or less set in stone, so you lose some flexibility, e.g. if you want to extend the cooking time then you're limited to leaving the oven on after it has "beeped", but you can't set a new timer. The alternative is to turn the oven off then go through the process of setting the program/temperature/time again. It feels like they've made it "hi-tech for hi-tech's sake", rather than just keeping things simple.