Customer Reviews

Cuisinart TOB-195BCC Exact Heat(TM) Convection Toaster Oven Broiler

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have now tried both the Breville BOV650XL and the Cuisinart TOB-195 and finally feel comfortable comparing the two. I spent a lot of time deciding between them, so I hope this review can save someone some time.

Overall, both ovens are excellent and both are very high performance for a toaster oven - they both bake and toast extremely well. But they are very different ovens, and each one outshines the other in a couple of categories.

Summary: If you care most about cooking great food to a high standard, the Cuisinart is the oven for you. It has precise temperature control (goes to 500 degrees), fabulous hi-temp broiling, and a convection feature. If you're more concerned about great design, convenient cleanup, ease of use, then the Breville is the way to go. Details below.

CUISINART TOB-195 - Exact Heat Convection Toaster Oven Broiler
The Cuisinart TOB-195 toaster oven is a dream for someone wanting to cook real meals and have a proper broiler on your countertop. But it's not perfect. Here is the good and the bad:
Good
- Temperature Range: ExactHeat means exact heat! The temperature range goes all the way to 500 F, which is really fantastic. Other toaster ovens I've had often couldn't even hit their 450 maximum, but this one registers right at 500 F on my oven thermometer.
- Broiler: GREAT for broiling. No annoying temperature moderating function that ruins the lovely crispy finish of a good broil.
- Dimensions: this is deeper than it is wide, which means that you can fit a lot inside of it, but it doesn't take up a lot of counter width.
- Finish: great looking stainless steel finish
- Toast: Though slower than a regular toaster, this oven makes great toast - crispy on the outside, and moist and chewy on the inside.
- Warranty: this has a 3-year warranty which is important for an appliance at this price
Bad
The Cuisinart has some really silly design flaws, including (as others have mentioned):
- Cleanup: The crumb tray can only be removed from the back, which means you have to turn the whole oven around to clean it properly
- Safety: There is a hot metal strip fairly close to the oven handle which could possibly burn you (hasn't happened to me yet, but it is possible),
- Ease of Use: a very complicated user interface that requires multiple button presses to toast, bake etc.
- Timer: You can set the electronic timer to beep when it's done, but the timer doesn't automatically shut off the oven
- Oven Rack: Two slots, one rack with 3 positions that gets caught on something in the top slot, and has a "lip" that makes quickly grabbing the included baking tray difficult.

BREVILLE BOV650XL - Compact Smart Oven
The Breville BOV650XL is a fabulous toaster oven who wants good quality toaster oven cooking with flawless design and ease of use. But it's also not perfect. Here is the good and the bad:
Good
- Toast: Slower than a proper toaster, this makes great toast with controls that remember how you like it so mornings are super easy
- Ease of Use: Handy dials let you program everything very quickly and are easy to figure out. Also remembers what you did last to make things easy.
- Cleanup: Easy to remove crumb tray from the front of the oven makes cleanup a breeze
- Dimensions: Small footprint, both depth and width.
- Timer: When the timer is done, the oven turns off, which means you don't have to pay attention to it
- Oven Rack: Three slots in the oven, one easy-in, easy-out rack. Reminders of when to use which slot right on the oven door. Great.
- Finish: Great looking stainless steel finish.
Bad
Though compared to most toaster ovens the cooking functions on this oven are fantastic, compared to the Cuisinart, this oven falls short in a couple of areas:
- Broil: Doesn't get quite hot enough to do a proper broiling job
- Temperature: This oven never came close to the desired temperature setting - my oven thermometer consistently rated the temperature inside the oven at 30-60 degrees below what it said on the front panel. You can, of course, adjust how you set the dial for most recipes, but it no matter what I did, I could not get it above 420 F.
- Warranty: Only a 1-year warranty. Mine died in just under 2 years, which was too soon for such an expensive appliance. However the Breville folks did offer to give me a new toaster oven at a significant discount. I decided to try the Cuisinart instead.

Conclusion:
I'm very glad I moved to the Cuisinart. This oven is pretty much the same width as the Breville, but its depth means it has a much larger capacity. And though I do miss the great design features and ease of use of the Breville, the great broiling and temperature control on the Cuisinart has made cooking in it more of a pleasure than I thought it could be. I hope one day these companies can learn from each other and make an oven with great design AND perfect cooking performance.

These convection ovens are the best there is. I just purchased my fourth one, a present for my daughter.
All the units I have work as well as the day they were purchased, one is 8 years old.

They are easy to keep clean, the timer is a real nice feature.

This particular model is great given the added size, depth mainly. This easily accommodates a 12" pan.

We use ours almost everyday and have never had a problem.

I was given this as a gift and I am so glad. It is wonderful as an alternative to an oven, especially for one or two people. I can do small pizzas, french fries, broiling, baking, etc. It is extra fantastic during the summer when a regular oven would add a ton of heat because it powers up very quickly and cools off easily. I haven't had any problems with the handle and the convection oven is a nice plus. The extra features such as settings for bagels and defrost are great. I couldn't live without this toaster oven!

Excellent product. Heats up very quickly and retains accurate temperature, using a fraction of the energy compared to our larger oven. We now use this toaster oven for everything except large cooking/roasting jobs.

We've had three of these toaster ovens and they are super. They have been very reliable and offer real baking and roasting ability in the summer time allowing us to avoid use of a big conventional oven. The only failing has been the paint around the front door where hot air escapes. I'm hoping the stainless steel trimmed version we have now will eliminate this problem. It was an appearance rather than a reliability issue. I complained once to Cuisinart and they replaced the oven free of charge so they do seem to stand behind their products. Highly recommended - particularly great for cooking small frozen pizzas!

Overall, I am very pleased with this product. However, don't throw away your conventional toaster, this machine does a medium job and takes a very long time to do so. Warning: except for the door handle, the outside of the entire machine gets very very HOT whenever you use it.

Bought this toaster oven for $179.99 with free shipping. Amazing price for an amazing little oven. The convection heating is top notch. The unit is well built, easy to clean and easy to use. Very happy with my purchase.

I love everything about this toaster oven. As a toaster it is excellent . In the summer heat it works well as a miniture oven. follow the instructions in the pamphet and you can not go wrong. As usual the service from amazon.ca was great.

This unit does everything I have asked of it. Toasted, baked, broiled,roasted.
It holds its temperature.
Tells you when it is ready and when it is done.

I gotta say - I'm pretty impressed with this unit. It's the only toaster oven I have found that actually keeps an accurate temperature, give or take a few degrees. Many toaster ovens tend to have unpredictable temperature spikes, and getting it to stay at one temperature is an absolute chore. It's about as accurate as my home oven, and that's really important for what I use it for. Thanks for a great product, Cuisinart. :)