In our household, the toaster oven is a near-everyday appliance.  We definitely use ours a lot.  So when our old one died, it was time to buy a new one for the first time in many years.

With so many options, I had a few criteria to help narrow the field.  It had to be fairly big.  By this I mean big enough to cook a 9” frozen pizza.  Or to toast two bagels (cut in half) at the same time.  Secondly, I wanted a decent number of toasting options, and they had to be spaced out so that I could easily differentiate between them.  Thirdly, a timer with auto-shutoff is a nice option, although it wasn’t a requirement.  Lastly, of course, was price.  I had no intention of spending three digits on this machine.

In the end, I chose the Premium brand, model PTO169.  This is a 1500 watt machine, with an internal measurement of 10” deep by 12” wide.  And while looks aren’t everything, its black and stainless steel exterior look very nice in my kitchen.

There are three knobs that let you control all of the functions.  No levers, which is nice for me, since it was a lever that ultimately broke on my old machine. 

The first knob sets the bake/broil temperature.  There are individual markings for the following temperatures: Toast (which is the same as “Off”), 100, 180, 250, 350, 400, 450, and Broil.  Most of our cooking is done between the 350 and the 450 markers.  Spaced as they are, it’s easy to estimate 375, 425, etc. 

The second knob is the timer.  It ranges from 0 to 30 minutes.  I wish it went up to an hour.  There are plenty of frozen meals that need to cook much longer than 30 minutes.  With this machine, the timer is useless for anything above a half hour.  Every five degrees has a numeric marker, and individual minutes are shown with a line.  The knob is big and the markers are widely spaced so that you can be very precise with the exact number of minutes you need.  When cooking with the timer, you will hear a tick, tick, tick sound as the timer winds down.  And a loud ding! when the time is up.  Note that the machine actually turns off when the timer ends, it’s not like you have to run and turn it off at that point.  This is good from a safety point of view.  If you cook using the timer you never have to worry about forgetting about it and burning the house down.  On the other hand, if you just wanted to check on your food after 15 minutes, not turn the oven off, this timer won’t help you.

The third knob is for toast.  There are 12 settings marked by lines, with notations for Light, Medium, and Dark along the way.  The lines are spaced out so that you can be very precise.  If you discover that your preference is for the 7th line, for instance, it’s easy to adjust the knob to that spot.  This was important for me to note because our old toaster had a very small space allotted for choosing your toast preference.  As a result, we were basically “guessing” each time.

So the toast knob is well-designed.  Too bad it doesn’t really matter.  Why do I say that?  Because the machine doesn’t do a very consistent job of toasting.  On two different days you can toast the same size bread on the same exact setting, and it will come out differently.  Partly it has to do with where you place your bread.  With such a large interior, you have a lot of leeway.  Moving it a few inches is likely to cause a difference in how the toast comes out.  But, frankly, even with carefully placing items in the exact same spot, we’ve noticed differences.  So, if very precise toast is important to you, this is not the machine for you.  We have learned to set the knob to a couple lines lower than where we think we really want it.  Then, going through a second round of toasting, if more browning is necessary.  It’s annoying, but we live with it.

As far as baking and broiling are concerned, we are happy with this machine.  The rack can be placed in either of two positions.  We set it in the lower position for most of our baking, and in the higher position for toasting and broiling.  When we cook frozen entrees or anything with a stated cooking time we find the times to be fairly accurate. 

Clean-up is a breeze.  The crumb tray slides out from the front which is very convenient.  The included pan is non-stick, and the outside just gets a quick wipe-down. 

One drawback is how hot the top of the machine gets.  This is something we were not used to.  The top of the machine gets to be burning hot.  In fact, we used to keep a few items on top of our old machine, now we don’t dare put anything on top of it for fear it will melt.

In summary, this is a nice-sized toaster oven with very convenient knobs.  Baking and broiling are fine.  Toasting isn’t very consistent, and don’t touch the top of the machine!  I paid around $50 for the machine, and I am content with it.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 50