The vent hood simply is not strong enough to control smoke and odors, which gush out over/around the hood when simply sauteeing a single piece of fish or small skillet of veggies. I have had to change my cooking style and use a lid all the time. I need to switch out to a more powerful model. I am very disappointed the builder chose this hood.
I bought this hood online, so didn't see it until it was delivered. The underside of the hood is open and unattractive. They really should enclose it. The HI fan setting is very noisy, the LOW and MED are ok. It has a light with 2 settings which is nice. The top part looks good as it's stainless, so I'm OK with this product. But, I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending this to anyone because of the noisy fan and the underside being open. Otherwise, it does work ok. You can use it to vent to the outside or not.
Since the GE retailer didn't have a sample product I had no clue about the performance of this product. After installation I realized that this product doesn't do its job very well.