Breville the Smart Oven® Pro, Convection Toaster Oven, Small Electric Countertop Oven, BOV845BKS, Black Sesame

Mine just arrived today, and I am in love with it. If it was legal, I would marry it. I bought it as a stand in for a defective oven in the house I rent. While I work on getting the landlord to replace the bad stove/oven unit, I needed something I can cook in that is not going to burn my house down. So, toaster oven and an induction cook top is my solution. Not to mention that these both will be useful after the stove issue is resolved. I have been debating getting a toaster over for literally a couple of years and with my ever-climbing electric bill, only cooking for one, and my oven being defunct, I decided to go for it.Then the questions became...Which one?How big?Features?I REALLY did not want to spend this much on a toaster over. But I couldn't bring myself to buy and El Cheapo, and then hate it for being not big enough, not having features I want as a serious cook, etc. Then reliability complaints about just about every model toaster oven on the market.I read review after review, on and off Amazon, and ultimately the reviews on both thesweethome.com and Cook's Illustrated sold me on the Breville. It was a toss up between the Breville and the Cuisinart TOB-260N1. There were a couple of deciding factors that led to the win for Breville. One was the fact that the Breville has a replaceable bulb for the light. The Cuisinart does not have a replaceable bulb. Another factor was the display. A lot of people didn't care for the display on the Cuisinart and liked the display on the Breville far better. Lastly, there were a number of complaints about the overall construction of the Cuisinart and general quality control. i.e. Inconsistent gap around door, etc.So I decided that for the sake of about $50 over the life of the unit, I would take the plunge and buy the Breville. I am very glad I did. I still have some reservations about longer term quality, but time will be the judge on that score.Much of why I like it is a direct result of just how bad my oven was. However, this thing is still pretty darned great on its own merits. It heats up fast, does not dry out my frozen pizzas, makes reasonably decent toast, and will do pretty much anything I would need a full-sized oven for, with a perhaps an exception here or there.First thing I did was cook a 12" frozen pizza. It came out perfect. I can't wait to try a fresh made pizza. There was the slightest of uneven doneness right at the front of the oven, which I solved by giving the pizza a 180 degree turn a couple of minutes before it was done. And that was more an issue of me being picky than anything else. Then I made toast. It makes toast as well as my starting-to-flail Cuisinart toaster. Perfect toast was so far down my list as to not really be factor. One doesn't buy a toaster oven for perfect toast, if one really wants success. (My opinion, of course.) This makes more than adequate toast for me. I can always whip out the old toaster if I want to get picky about it.I have an addiction to Trident brand fish sticks sold at my favorite warehouse store. ADDICTION, I tell you. But I hated trying to cook them in my nightmare oven. Cooked unevenly, burning the crap out of them before heating them through. Not to mention heating a huge oven for a few fish sticks. So I am just over the moon excited to try cooking fish sticks in my Breville tonight.I have only done a couple of things with it today as a test run, but my first impressions are really favorable. I am confident this will do everything that I expect and want it to do.Initial impression of manufacturing quality is very good. Nothing weird. No parts that don't quite fit. No obviously poorly made parts. Instructions are good. I find it very easy to use, although I did actually read the manual first. I love, love, love the oven light.I have found that my fancy Oxo 9 x 13 cake pan does not fit in it. There is a rim on that pan that doesn't clear the light on the inside. And my 13 1/8 th inch pizza stone does not fit, by a hair. Not a surprise. I expected that, based on the specs. Not a big deal for me. I will get a cake pan that fits, and a little bit smaller pizza stone. Just something to bear in mind on larger pans with rims or handles that might not clear the light or make for a tight fit.Edit: I realized that I had tried to put my OXO 9 x 13 pan in on the middle rack. Doh! It would actually be used on the bottom rack position. Not the middle. So it does actually fit.All in all, I am super pleased with this toaster over. It isn't even as big as I was thinking it would be. I was thinking it would be tank-like on my counter, but it actually fits very nicely and doesn't look monstrous. It's a very attractive unit, to boot.Time will tell on longevity. I do have some concerns there. I have also yet to do any serious cooking in it, so we will see how this holds up to expectations. With those caveats, I would already recommend this product as a serious contender for someone looking for a countertop oven that will see real duty.

I purchased this toaster oven on March 3, 2020, and I have used it at least once a day, every single day, in the nearly two years since.I have never once had even a slight issue with this fantastic oven. My English muffins come out consistently every time — all the muffins are the same level of brownness, and from one day to the next, they are absolutely perfect.I also occasionally bake pizzas and other foods in this oven. With only a very small exception, the cheese reaches a uniform golden brown exactly how I prefer it, and I know it will do the same the next time I make a pizza.One nice thing about this oven is that for most foods, you don’t have to guess a time and temperature. You just don’t. Instead, you select the type of program you want and the amount you’re making. For instance, I have English muffins every morning with breakfast. I set the oven to the “toast” program, darkness level 5, and quantity 3 — sometimes you have to set the quantity by +/- 1 to get the results you want, but that isn’t enough of an issue to reduce the rating. When I hit start, the timer is set to exactly the right time needed to achieve that level of darkness.There are many different programs, which you can read about in the product features above, so I won’t go into them here. I have personally used the toast, bagel, pizza, and bake programs. They all work very well. The bake program, unlike most others, does require you to set the time and temperature. For pizzas, you enter the size (in inches) and the temperature, and the oven suggests the appropriate time. I have found the time suggested for pizzas is far too long, but I have only baked thin crust pizzas. For a Chicago-style deep dish, the time would perhaps be too short. But without an option to set the crust type, this is to be expected.I have also baked frozen fried chicken tenders and French fries, with excellent results here as well. Warming up chocolate chip cookies from the bakery is a snap: in under 5 minutes, I have “fresh from the oven” chocolate chip cookies with gooey melted chocolate chips.Some toaster ovens I’ve used take forever to heat up… and some run so hot I have learned (the hard way) that I needed to cut the suggested time in half. This one is spot on. Preheating to 425°F takes around 5 minutes or a bit less (I haven’t actually timed it).The one small issue I have had is that the right front section tends to get slightly hotter than the rest of the oven. Not a lot; only slightly. It doesn’t make a difference with foods like toast, which complete quickly. But something like a pizza, which takes about 12 minutes (after preheating) for my preferred pizza in this oven, the cheese will be a bit browner in that area.The included baking pan, pizza pan, and grill pan are high quality and sturdy, but the finish does not stand up to pizza cutters, so be sure to take the pizza off the pan before slicing, or otherwise to cut very carefully.Cleaning is easy, but could be better. The crumb/drip tray pulls right out from the front. There could be some improvement here though, because there is a bar running across the front that collects crumbs, and the only way to really completely clean the oven is with a handheld vac with the right attachment. Also, I would prefer if the drip tray had a nonstick coating like the included pizza pan. If food gets baked on, it can be difficult to clean off.Of all the toaster ovens I have owned, I have been far happier with this one than any other. There is no contest. Is it perfect? No… but nothing is. It’s pretty darn close though. Breville toaster ovens are comparatively expensive, and this model doesn’t double as an air fryer, but I will never buy another brand again, so long as this oven continues to please me like it has for the last two years.