modern fish tank aluminum stand with glass bottom shelf

With a similar burner and grate design to the Q 1200 but a larger cooking area and an upgrade to 13,000 BTUs, the Traveler is more suited to family-size groups than the former. We found the Weber Traveler intuitive and approachable - it's a dream to assemble, light, and use. The grates are slightly difficult to clean, and brushing them requires you to hold onto the grill as it shakes in the process.

Cooking Area: 189 square inches (about four burger patties at a time).It's ultimately a reliable compact grill that does double-duty as an indoor or outdoor workhorse. Cleanup is easy using a grill brush on the grates and wiping down the inside of the lid to prevent grease buildup did the job. The grill runs a little hotter with the lid down than the temperature indicated on the built-in thermometer, and there were minimal flare-ups in cooking. You might expect hot and cool zones in a smaller, portable grill, but the circular, 8,500-BTU tube burner provides even heat across the enamel-coated cast iron grates, and all of the food we tested cooked evenly, with no excessive charring or lack thereof. After the easy task of lighting the grill with the pushbutton ignition, the grill grates came to cooking temperature in just eight and a half minutes - a tough task for most portable grill competitors. Attaching the gas bottle took a little manipulation that sparked safety concerns but ultimately resolved once connected.

Assembly is simple thanks to the manual providing pictogram-style instructions, and the whole task took just 12 minutes for us to be ready to cook. The Weber Q 1200 remains at the top of our list of tabletop gas grills because it packs the performance of larger grills into a small form. It’s somewhat heavy, and we had to fiddle with the gas bottle, which raised some concerns.

Modern fish tank aluminum stand with glass bottom shelf