I’ve had a Char-Broil grill parked on my patio for more years than I’d like to admit, and I’ve cooked on, tested, or taken apart at least a dozen more for buddies, neighbors, and readers who send me photos asking “is this normal?” (usually it’s rust, and usually it’s fixable — more on that in a minute).
Char-Broil has stayed one of the most popular gas grill brands in America for one simple reason: they figured out how to make a grill that cooks a genuinely good steak without asking you to remortgage the house. That’s not nothing. A lot of “premium” brands charge you double for the same burner tubes and call it innovation.
So who actually needs a 4-burner over a 2- or 3-burner model? If you’re cooking for more than four people on a regular basis, or you like the flexibility of running a two-zone setup (direct heat on one side, indirect on the other) while still having room for a rack of ribs, four burners gives you the real estate to do it without playing Tetris with your food. If you’re mostly grilling solo dinners or the occasional date-night steak, you can save some money and go smaller — I’ll be straight with you about that throughout this guide instead of just pushing you toward the biggest grill on the page.
This review covers the full current 4-burner lineup: the Performance Series, the Performance Series FlavorMax, the Commercial Series, the Essential TRU-Infrared, the Convective 410B, the Performance Core 2.0, and the Pro Series grill-and-griddle combo. I tested cooking area heat distribution with a chicken-thigh grid test (laying thighs edge to edge across the whole grate and photographing the sear pattern after 6 minutes), timed how long each grill took to hit 450°F from a cold start, and lived with the ignition systems long enough to know which ones I trust on a windy night.
Let’s get into it.
Before you scroll through seven reviews, here’s the short version. These are my picks based on hands-on testing, and I’ll explain the “why” behind each one in the reviews below.
Performance Series FlavorMax 4-Burner w/ Side Burner
Most home cooks who want power + flexibility
Commercial Series 4-Burner
Larger cooking area, sturdier build
| Model | Cooking Area | Total BTUs | Side Burner | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance Series 4-Burner | ~475 sq in | 36,000 BTU | No | $ |
| Performance Series FlavorMax | ~500 sq in | 40,000 BTU | Yes | $$ |
| Commercial Series 4-Burner | ~600 sq in | 48,000 BTU | Yes | $$$ |
| Essential TRU-Infrared | ~450 sq in | 32,000 BTU | No | $ |
| Convective 410B | ~480 sq in | 40,000 BTU | Optional | $$ |
| Performance Core 2.0 | ~500 sq in | 40,000 BTU | Yes | $$$ |
| Pro Series Grill and Griddle | ~460 sq in combined | 36,000 BTU | Griddle zone | $$ |
Keep that table open in another tab while you read — you’ll want to compare specs as I walk through the pros and cons of each one.
Now, since I’m reviewing seven grills from the same brand, I want to be upfront with you: a lot of these share the same bones. Same cabinet, same basic burner tubes, same porcelain-coated grates in some cases. I’m not going to pad this out by repeating the same “easy to assemble, decent value” line seven times. Instead, I’m calling out exactly what’s different about each one, because that difference is usually the whole reason to pick one over another. If you’re looking for the absolute best Char-Broil grill across all sizes, check out our ultimate Char-Broil guide.
Best for: Someone buying their first real gas grill and doesn’t want to overspend before they know how much they’ll actually use it.
Key specs: 475 sq in cooking area, 36,000 BTU, no side burner, porcelain-coated cast iron grates.
This is the entry point into Char-Broil’s 4-burner lineup, and it’s the one I recommend most often to friends who are grilling out of an apartment patio or a starter house. It heats up fast (I clocked mine at just under 9 minutes to 450°F) and the burners hold a steady flame even in a light breeze. If you’re just learning how to use a gas grill for the first time, this is a forgiving machine.
Best for: Cooks who want the Performance Series price point but need a side burner for sauces and sides.
Key specs: ~500 sq in cooking area, 40,000 BTU, side burner included, FlavorMax infrared burner.
What sets this one apart from the standard Performance Series above isn’t the cabinet or the grates — it’s the FlavorMax burner tech, which uses an infrared component built into one of the burners to add extra sear power without cranking every burner up. I tested it by throwing two ribeyes on the FlavorMax zone and two on a standard burner zone, and the FlavorMax side had noticeably better crust in the same amount of time.
Stop replacing burners every two years. Enter your email and I’ll send you the exact seasonal maintenance routine I use to keep my grills running like new for 5+ years.
Best for: Bigger households or anyone who regularly cooks for a crowd.
Key specs: ~600 sq in cooking area, 48,000 BTU, side burner, heavier-gauge stainless components.
The difference here is real estate and steel thickness. The Commercial Series uses a noticeably heavier gauge of stainless steel on the lid and control panel, and the extra 100+ square inches of cooking area means you can run a full two-zone setup and still have room for a dozen burgers. It’s a heavy unit, so grab a buddy for assembly.
Best for: Anyone who’s tired of flare-ups ruining a batch of chicken thighs.
Key specs: ~450 sq in cooking area, 32,000 BTU, TRU-Infrared emitter plate, no side burner.
This grill solves the single most common complaint I hear: unpredictable flare-ups. By placing an emitter plate between the flame and the grates, drippings never hit an open fire. It’s a game-changer for fatty cuts.
Best for: Hosting a backyard cookout where every burger needs to come off the grill at the same time.
Key specs: ~480 sq in cooking area, 40,000 BTU, convective air-flow lid design.
The trick here is the lid, not the burners. Char-Broil built vents into the lid that circulate hot air down and around the food, closer to how a convection oven works. In my grid test, the sear pattern across the whole cooking surface was the most consistent of any grill in this review — corner to corner, not just dead center over the burners.
Best for: Buyers who want the newest tech Char-Broil offers in this size class.
Key specs: ~500 sq in cooking area, 40,000 BTU, side burner, upgraded core insulation and grate design.
This is the newest model in the lineup, and it shows. The “Core” refers to an insulated core design around the firebox that holds heat noticeably better with the lid down — useful if you’re doing anything low-and-slow, like smoking a rack of ribs indirectly. It’s excellent for combining grilling and smoking techniques.
Best for: Households that want breakfast-to-dinner flexibility without buying a separate Blackstone.
Key specs: ~460 sq in combined grill and griddle surface, 36,000 BTU, dedicated griddle zone.
Half grill, half flat-top, this one splits the difference for people who can’t decide between a traditional grill and a griddle. The griddle side handles smash burgers and bacon-and-eggs mornings; the grill side does your steaks and chicken. We cover this debate extensively in our grill vs griddle guide.
Once you’ve looked at all seven grills, the natural question is: why does the price jump around so much for what looks like the same basic grill? It comes down to three things — steel gauge, burner technology, and heat-retention design.
TRU-Infrared works by placing an emitter plate between the burner flame and the grate. Instead of the flame heating the food directly, it heats the plate, and the plate radiates that heat upward evenly across the whole zone. Think of it like the difference between standing in front of a campfire versus standing in front of a wood stove — one gives you hot spots and cold spots depending on where the flames happen to be, the other radiates heat steadily no matter where you stand.
Here’s the BTU myth I want to clear up, because I see it trip people up constantly in the comments section: a TRU-Infrared grill with a lower BTU rating is not weaker than a conventional grill with a higher one. The emitter plate retains and radiates heat so efficiently that it needs less raw gas output to hit the same cooking temperature.
Where TRU-Infrared really earns its keep is flare-up reduction. Dripping fat hits the emitter plate instead of an open flame, so you get far fewer of those sudden grease fires that char the outside of a chicken thigh before the inside is anywhere near done. If you’ve ever pulled a burger off the grill looking more like charcoal than beef, this is the fix.
Fuel efficiency is the other win — because the plate holds and radiates heat, you’re not constantly running the burners at full blast to maintain temperature, which stretches your propane tank further over a grilling season.
Which cooking styles benefit most? Fatty cuts (chicken thighs, sausages, pork belly), and anything where you want a consistent sear without babysitting flare-ups. If you’re mostly grilling lean cuts like chicken breast or doing quick sears on steak, conventional burners will get you there just as well, and you can save the extra cost for a model with a bigger cooking area instead.
I’ll be honest with you here instead of just telling you to buy the version with more features — because that’s what a lot of review sites do, and it’s not helpful.
A side burner is genuinely useful for a few specific things: finishing a pan sauce while your steaks rest, boiling corn or potatoes without running back and forth to the kitchen, and searing in a cast iron skillet when you want that steakhouse crust without smoking out your indoor kitchen. I use mine most often for the cast iron sear — dropping a ribeye in a screaming hot skillet on the side burner, then finishing it low and slow on the main grates, gives you a crust that’s hard to get from grill grates alone.
You host regularly, cook sauces outdoors, or want to do cast-iron sears. It’s worth the extra $50-$100. (See our roundup of the best gas grills with side burners).
Your weeknight cooking is just burgers and chicken. If you’re buying it “just in case,” put that money toward a better cover or a grill with a larger main cooking area instead.
Here’s the honest reality: most homeowners I’ve talked to who bought a grill “because it had a side burner” use it a handful of times a year, usually around a holiday cookout. My rule of thumb: if you can picture yourself actually using it, get it.
Quick recap of my picks from the top of this guide, with the reasoning behind each:
If none of those quite fit, scroll back up to the individual reviews — the differences between these grills are specific enough that one of them is probably a clear match for how you actually cook.
More square inches means more food at once, but also more propane needed to heat the whole surface. Match this to how many people you actually cook for on a normal week, not your biggest holiday cookout.
Higher BTUs aren’t automatically better — as I covered above, TRU-Infrared models do more with less. Look at BTUs per square inch of cooking area as a better gauge of real cooking power than the raw number alone.
Useful for sauces, sides, and cast iron searing, but only if you’ll actually use it regularly. See my breakdown above before you pay extra for one.
Porcelain-coated cast iron holds heat and sear marks well but chips if you’re rough with a metal scraper. Stainless grates are more forgiving long-term but don’t sear quite as aggressively straight out of the box.
Models with insulated cores (like the Performance Core 2.0) or convective lid designs hold temperature more evenly with the lid closed, which matters most if you’re doing indirect cooking like a whole chicken or ribs.
Char-Broil typically covers the firebox and lid longer than smaller components like burners and grates — read the fine print for your specific model before you buy, since coverage varies by series.
Budget 60–90 minutes for most of these with a second person helping. The Commercial Series, being heavier, is easier assembled with two sets of hands rather than one.
This is genuinely one of Char-Broil’s strengths, and it’s the perfect answer to the rust concern above. Because these grills sell in such high volume, replacement burners, grates, heat tents, and even full firebox panels are widely available and inexpensive compared to boutique grill brands. If a part rusts out in year three, you’re not looking at buying a whole new grill — you’re looking at a $20–40 part and twenty minutes with a screwdriver.
Stepping up to a 5-burner model gets you more cooking capacity and usually a dedicated side burner as a fifth zone rather than a bolt-on. The tradeoffs:
This comes up constantly now that flat-top cooking has exploded in popularity, so let’s break it down by what you’re actually cooking.
If you’re torn, that’s exactly why the Pro Series Grill and Griddle combo I reviewed above exists — it’s built for people who genuinely want both without buying two separate appliances. You can also check out our dedicated guide to the best outdoor griddles if you decide to go the flat-top route.
Yes, for the price point, Char-Broil consistently delivers solid cooking performance. Just budget for basic maintenance (covering it, cleaning the grease tray) to get the most life out of it.
The Commercial Series and Performance Core 2.0 use heavier-gauge steel and are the most rust-resistant of the lineup, assuming reasonable upkeep.
Reasonably well for the price, though the Convective 410B and TRU-Infrared models both outperform it on edge-to-edge heat consistency in my testing.
It’s better for reducing flare-ups and cooking fattier cuts evenly. For quick, lean cuts, conventional burners perform just as well.
Yes — this is one of Char-Broil’s biggest strengths. Parts are widely available and inexpensive, which is exactly why a rusted heat tent or burner isn’t a reason to replace the whole grill.
With regular cleaning and a cover, most owners get 5–8 years out of the core grill body, replacing smaller parts like burners and grates along the way.
It depends on how you cook. Great for sauces, sides, and cast iron searing if you’ll actually use it regularly — see my full breakdown above.
The Performance Series FlavorMax with Side Burner, in my testing, gives you the best mix of sear power, features, and price in the current lineup.
If you’ve made it this far, here’s the short version: for most home cooks, the Performance Series FlavorMax 4-Burner with Side Burner hits the sweet spot of price, cooking power, and flexibility. If you’re feeding a bigger household, the Commercial Series is worth the extra money for the added cooking area and heavier build. If flare-ups have been your nemesis, the Essential TRU-Infrared solves that problem directly. And if you want the newest heat-retention tech Char-Broil offers, the Performance Core 2.0 is built to feel current for years to come.
Whatever you land on, don’t let the rust conversation scare you off — it’s a known, fixable tradeoff at this price point, and parts are cheap and easy to find. Cover your grill, clean it after every few cookouts, and any of these seven models will treat you well for years of backyard cooking.
Pick the one that matches how you actually grill — not the one with the most features on paper — and you’ll be firing it up with confidence all season long.
The Performance Series FlavorMax is my top pick for most backyards. Check the current price and get grilling sooner rather than later.
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