Such knobs are fairly lousy in this way: they lack a start and end point. This is a standard failing of modern things: it’s easier to implement generically useful functionality this way, but it’s objectively inferior in most concrete cases. (Another example: ebooks with unanchored scrolling instead of physical books with pagination where you can feel how far you are through the book. You have no reference point.)
Old microwaves had a clear, directional knob with a start point, an end point, and markings for the values they represented. Barring the question of precision (which could be more or less solved with a more strikingly non-linear dial), that’s positively superb. My ideal microwave has only the following controls: such a dial (you could do some pretty fancy active magnetic design on it to improve it and make it precise, over the old knobs), probably another dial or slider (I’m open to trying it out) for power level, and that’s it. I’d be willing to discuss a +30s start button which moved the knob into the right place for you, and some sort of digital timer for potentially easier reading from a distance. No start button or stop button or open button, because the door opening and closing is better than the old microwaves.
Now it is possible for an unanchored knob to be good; I have in mind a tuning knob from a fairly expensive radio from fifty or more years ago, where they had clearly put a lot of effort into its friction profile. But I’ve never seen such a thing in the digital age, only ever in the analogue world. (Hmm… I wonder whether sound boards count. They may be an exception.) In the digital age, knobs are normally just glorified less/more buttons with very coarse quantisation.
My microwave is similar to yours, but a cheaper model, with most notably a capacitive touch strip instead of the knob; it’s awful.
Half the time, my microwaving action consists of closing the door and pressing [start/+30sec] however many times is required.
Sometimes I twist the knob until the display shows the desired time—in this respect it works like an iPod.
And when I want to defrost bread, I know it's Defrost program 4. Or if I want something else, the list of programs is helpfully silk-screened behind the door.
Maybe my expectations are low, having owned a Panasonic for the previous 9 years. But I'm genuinely happy with it. It works for me.
(I did see the capacitive touch strip model and actively avoided it. I knew I'd hate it without even trying it.)
Old microwaves had a clear, directional knob with a start point, an end point, and markings for the values they represented. Barring the question of precision (which could be more or less solved with a more strikingly non-linear dial), that’s positively superb. My ideal microwave has only the following controls: such a dial (you could do some pretty fancy active magnetic design on it to improve it and make it precise, over the old knobs), probably another dial or slider (I’m open to trying it out) for power level, and that’s it. I’d be willing to discuss a +30s start button which moved the knob into the right place for you, and some sort of digital timer for potentially easier reading from a distance. No start button or stop button or open button, because the door opening and closing is better than the old microwaves.
Now it is possible for an unanchored knob to be good; I have in mind a tuning knob from a fairly expensive radio from fifty or more years ago, where they had clearly put a lot of effort into its friction profile. But I’ve never seen such a thing in the digital age, only ever in the analogue world. (Hmm… I wonder whether sound boards count. They may be an exception.) In the digital age, knobs are normally just glorified less/more buttons with very coarse quantisation.
My microwave is similar to yours, but a cheaper model, with most notably a capacitive touch strip instead of the knob; it’s awful.