Worth the Money If You Use It Often

Author's Rating:

Pros: Convection; Fast Heating; Durable; Reasonably Insulated; Loud beep; Auto off; Crumb Tray slides from front

Cons: Low-quality non-stick pans; No light, but can see inside; Outside case a little hot

The Bottom Line: 
Yes if you're going to use it often. It is easy to use, will take the abuse, easy to clean, and worth the money. Low value for the casual user.

Author's Review
So for this amount of money, there's no point in owning it if you are going to seriously use it. Don't buy it just to toast something, because a real toaster will give you faster results. It takes at ~4 minutes to toast sliced bread in this unit and depends on how light and brown you want it.

For me buying this unit is because my place has no oven or stovetop range but I needed to cook and eat and the microwave only goes so far. So I looked into spending some serious money on a toaster oven that could take regular abuse. It was between Cuisinart TOB-175/TOB-165 and this one. I've used that model before (work place toaster) and didn't have problems other than the toast was always too light and the buttons and menus were confusing. I wasn't even sure if the timer turned the oven off or merely beep. I ended up choosing the Krups mostly because Sears had it discounted at a Kitchen Sale event by 15% and I got the last one.

When you first get the oven, I believe it's important to follow the instructions and run it without anything in it. I noticed it did smoke a little as the manufacturing residue burned off. I'd suggest doing this in a well-ventilated area. I did it in my bathroom with the fan on because I live in a condo.

The fan is powerful such that it can make your counter rattle. My kitchenette has real solid granite counters so I actually didn’t hear a sound. But when I placed my hand on the counter near the unit, I did feel a little vibration. I see it being a problem for some other people.

I’ve never used the oven feature because I always turned on convection oven mode. It does reduce the cooking times significantly! I buy oven-bake fries from the supermarket and the instructions say 18-22 minutes. I only put it in for 10 minutes for the instructed time because it’s that fast. I’ve always baked muffins and broiled steaks in it as well and it’s great. You may have to adjust your cooking times at the beginning with some failures. I haven’t found this oven to do well is make my oven-baked potatoes like I used to in a traditional large oven. I think the convection feature might be cooking it too fast before the skin turns crispy while leaving the inside soft. (Update: Using the traditional oven feature does turn out my potatoes like they used to be.)

I’ve never actually touched any of the pre-programmed modes. They are merely pre-programed temperature and time settings. I tend to just adjust my time and temperature according to my cooking instructions. i.e. Cookies: preset 300˚F, 10 minutes. You then have to adjust the time depending on if you are using the pan included or an aluminum pan, amount of cookie dough, thickness of dough, browning desired. Fairly useless. I would have preferred a function where I could also save my own pre-sets. I’ve never defrosted anything in it either. I usually defrost things in a warm bucket of water because a microwave tends to cook it.

So far, I’ve been living 2 months with using primarily this toaster oven as my cooking appliance and I’ve been eating well and am quite satisfied with the oven. The included pans have a low-quality non-stick is a separate issue. After 2 months, I've notice small flecks of it flaking off and not everything comes off clean like my frying pan with a triple durable Teflon coating. Good thing you can buy replacements at least (available on Amazon.com). Unfortunately this oven seems a little too short to fit a full 12-inch pizza, but I admit I’ve never tried and just measured the wire rack. A 10" pizza would work better. It’s healthier than frying because I can wrap aluminum foil around my meats coated with marinades and spices then bake it without oil.

Update: To replace the crappy pan that came with the toaster oven, I got a 8" square Pyrex glass dish which fits quite well in the oven. The Pyrex 8.5" loaf pan also fits in it. Nothing bigger of Pyrex baking dishes than those items because of the extra width of the side handles.

Over time, I noticed my glass door accumulating some white residue. It takes 3-5 weeks before anything noticeable appears since it was last cleaned. I’m not sure what it is, but it seems that Fantastik can take it off, but remember not to use any abrasive and/or aggressive cleaners on the rest of the unit because the interior is non-stick except for the bottom which is the crumb tray. This validates the concern of running the oven empty when you first get the unit to kill the residue because I can only imagine it would have been worse if I didn't.