We've written an article on porcelain benchtops that is quite revealing. It will certainly help anyone who is interested in using this type of product.

See the link below: -
Your guide to choosing porcelain benchtops

Admittedly, tiles are a step away from giant slabs, but in terms of general resilience....

Back in the early 80's my dad decided to tile our kitchen countertops. After 30 years they were still A-OK; only problem was that his dodgy tiling meant a couple of tiles lifted over the years.

I can say that those tiles took 30 years of being used as a cutting surface and having hot pots put directly on them and had barely any damage to them (although they were horribly outdated by that point).

Good point Daria, they'd also be more affordable. We've seen many tiled benchtops over the years, our experience is the grout gets stained or a few of them get chipped or cracked, other than that the tiles are fairly preserved.

I still haven't installed the porcelain - renovation has only just got underway - but will be able to report back in 6 months when it's installed. I'm putting my benchtop samples from Artedomus and Stone Italia through their paces - wine, beetroot, tea, spag bol, tumeric, oil - and so far hairdye is the only thing that's stuck. It wiped clean off the Artedomus sample but stained the Stone Italia one. Does anyone else have experience with these surfaces yet? Thanks Dan Kitchens for providing the Cons as well as the Pros for porcelain. Its hard to get that information anywhere at the moment.

Hi canaryninja and mikaelamaya did you go with the porcelain? What did you think? I am deciding between a porcelain slab and silestone.

Just read your post.....I was sold on the CDK Neolith product but it proved to be too difficult to get a stonemason who has experience with the surface. Even calls to CDK, emails and FB contact were left with no response. Ceasarstone rugged concrete is my alternative. No wonder not many people use it....