We like the Breville Air Fryer Pro’s sleek design and easy-to-navigate interface. The Breville also has a Phase Cook feature (similar to the Cuisinart’s Dual Cook Mode), which allows you to program two back-to-back cooking functions. Like the Cuisinart, the Breville’s rack glides out when you open the door so you don’t have to stick your hands deep into the oven cavity to retrieve your food. It comes with two oven racks so you can cook more food at once—an addition we appreciate with the Cuisinart too. It also comes with an air fry/dehydrate basket rack and a broiling rack that fits inside its enamel roasting pan. But we still prefer the Cuisinart’s ceramic pizza stone over the Breville’s nonstick pizza pan (though Breville does sell a pizza stone separately for around $30).
Up against bigger, more expensive toaster ovens, the FlashXpress more than held its own. If you have your eye on a recipe written specifically for a pod-shaped air fryer (as most are) but want to prepare it in a convection cuisinart toa60 toaster oven, you can get good results with some minor adjustments. We also like that the FlashXpress beeps when the cycle has finished and turns itself off automatically (as does our other pick, the Cuisinart).
However, if you plan to air fry on the regular, you may want to consider getting our upgrade pick, the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro, which has a slightly more powerful fan for air frying. If you get a toaster oven with a convection setting, you can also use it for air frying (air frying is, after all, just convection baking). While the fan isn’t quite as powerful as the ones in most pod-shaped air fryers or air fryer toaster ovens, it produces similar results. That’s because a toaster oven can fit more food at once, and in our experience it cooks more evenly.
Cuisinart oven’s practicality is reflected in its compact size and low weight of just 21 pounds. It’s easy to clean thanks to its metal manufacturing materials, but mainly stainless steel, which gives it a longer life without damaging the parts. The interior is covered in a non-stick material that prevents the accumulation of grease and dirt and allows easy cleaning. With the daily advancement of technology, home appliances are not far behind. And you are probably in search of new tools that make the daily task of cooking easier. Ovens, pans, pots, refrigerators… there is so much to choose from, but what are the best options for you?
The biggest drawback to this model is the toast shade setting on the timer dial. You have to turn the knob past the 10-minute mark and then reverse it to the desired shade setting. However, it’s difficult to determine exactly where the dial should be placed for your preferred toast shade. Eventually, we were able to find the sweet spot on the dial for our desired doneness, but it took multiple attempts. That said, the toast came out remarkably even for a toaster oven of this caliber. Like most toaster ovens, the Hamilton Beach will get hotter after each batch of toast you make in a row.
Additionally, we took note of any excessively loud beeps and evaluated the usefulness of each model’s accessories. We also looked at smart toaster ovens, such as the exorbitantly priced June Oven; it boasts an HD camera (which monitors your food as it cooks), carbon fiber heating elements, and two convection fans. We recognize that for some, a level of automation could prove helpful, so we’ll continue to test smart ovens. But we haven’t yet tested one where the features feel worth the investment for most people.
But if you have the space and still want a dedicated air fryer setting (plus some additional settings), we’d recommend getting our upgrade pick, the Breville Pro. A standard quarter-sheet tray (and if you put a quarter-sheet tray on each of its two racks, that’s equal to a standard half sheet pan you’d use in a full-size oven). It can also fit a 12-cup muffin tin (ours measured 14 by 10.75 inches) or a 9-by-13-inch baking pan (without handles). The Cuisinart has four slots for the racks, with metal hooks that pull out the middle rack when the door is opened. It was one of the fastest models to preheat to 350 °F, taking just over three minutes. Additionally, as a Japanese appliance, the Panasonic FlashXpress is designed around degrees Celsius for temperature input.
The FlashXpress cooked foods to a lovely, even golden brown better than most other models we tried in this price range (and beyond), and its toast shade settings were among the most accurate. For a relatively low price, this toaster oven stands out from a crowded pack of mediocre, cheap models. We found its performance and features to be comparable to those of larger and pricier toaster ovens.
It offers just three temperature settings—350 °F, 400 °F, and 450 °F—plus four presets, and it can only fit two pieces of bread. The Balmuda has other design flaws (a flap on the door) and twee impracticalities (the easy-to-lose steam cup), and ultimately, we found it to be just a snazzy-looking prototype at best. You should also know that as soon as the oven is preheated, cuisinart toa60 the timer starts counting down. This can be annoying if you’re not quite ready to put your food in the oven, but we think it’s easy enough to adjust the timer once you’re ready. The timer on our upgrade pick, the Breville Pro, also begins counting down once the oven is preheated. However, it will pause the timer when you open the oven door, whereas the Cuisinart doesn’t.