The Breville BOV450XL Mini Smart Oven with Element IQ is much more expensive than your typical toaster oven, but it is a better bet for more cooking options. If you are going to do more than toasting, this is where a mini oven with more functionality is worth the extra cost. This review of the Breville Mini Smart Oven will look into the features as well as the pros and cons of the unit.
Breville BOV450XL Review
The features of the Breville BOV450XL include:
- 1800-watt
- Stainless steel exterior
- Tempered glass door
- Element IQ technology
- 4 quartz elements
- LCD display
- 8 cooking functions
- “A bit more” feature
- Nonstick interior
- Removable crumb tray
- Size: 16” x 13” x 9”
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The Breville BOV450XL is an 1800-watt oven with 8 pre-set cooking functions – bake, broil, roast, cookies, reheat, pizza, bagel and toast. These functions come with recommended settings so that you don’t have to fiddle with the cooking temperature and time. You can change them to suit your personal preferences and different situations, and once changed, the customized settings will remain in the memory of the oven until it is altered or unplugged.
Below the cooking functions dial is the LCD display and the temperature and time buttons. You can adjust them by pressing the up and down arrow buttons in between. The LCD display will illuminate with an orange backlight when the unit is operating. Once the food is ready, the display light will turn blue so that you can easily know that the cooking cycle is complete.
The heating elements are located both at the top and bottom of the oven’s interior. The elements are composed of quartz and the reason for this material is that it is more sensitive to heat changes and will offer more even heating throughout the oven. The Element IQ technology in this model helps with the heat distribution too and it will channel heat to where it is needed when a cooking function is chosen. It will also adjust the heat accordingly by increasing or lowering the heat output for different types of cooking.
Another unique aspect of this mini smart oven is the “a bit more” feature. What it does is to allow the oven to cook a little longer to get better results when activated without having to reset the cooking time. For more flexibility, there is a 3-position rack height for cooking different types of food.
The crumb tray is removable from the front. To gauge the size of the interior, the oven can fit 4 slices of bread or an 11” pizza. The oven comes with a baking pan.
For a closer look at the features, check out this clip below:
Note: The Breville BOV450XL has another 2 similar models – BOV650XL Compact Smart Oven and BOV800XL Smart Oven, which we feel are one of the best toaster ovens out there. The main difference lies in the size with the BOV450XL being the smallest. The biggest, which is the Breville 800XL, has an additional cooking function, i.e. warm, and 5 heating elements instead of 4. It is also a convection oven and it costs about $100 more than the Breville 450XL.
Should You Buy The Breville Mini Smart Oven?
Pros
-
Many functions – For a compact sized oven, the Breville
BOV450XL offers a wide range of functions and smart heating
technology for better cooking results. Majority of buyers
are happy with the performance of the oven and feels it is
worth it compared to those cheap toaster ovens like the
Hamilton Beach Toastation.
- Pre-set times – The pre-set settings make it fast and easy to use the oven. There is no guesswork involved with the recommended settings. By able to add cooking time with the “a bit more” feature, it becomes even easier to get your preferred cooking results.
- Cooks well – The oven’s performance has led to many customers leaving positive reviews on this model. The oven distributes heat evenly and quickly and holds temperature steadily for good cooking results. The toasts may end up with slightly different shades on both sides but they are crispy and taste good overall.
Cons
- Handle sticks out – A few buyers have noted that the handle sticks out about 2 inches. Being a mini oven, people tend to buy it for its small size, so the large handle is a waste of space for those with really tight room on their counter top.
- Timer too loud – Some users also think that the timer alarm is a little too loud that it becomes an annoyance.
- Pricy – This unit does cost much more than the usual toaster oven. For example, the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven will cost you less than half the price of this model. Of course, it depends on what you are using the oven for, but if it is just for toasting, you might find this a little overpriced.
- Rack does not slide out – Compared to a lot of toaster ovens out there whereby the rack slides out when the door is opened like the Cuisinart TOB-40, the BOV450XL lacks this convenience. You will have to carefully pull out the rack yourself to load and unload your food.
The Breville BOV450XL Mini Smart Oven is indeed a little expensive for a small counter top oven but it is worth the investment if you are looking to do more than just toasting. We recommend it for its Element IQ technology and the “a bit more” feature which adds to the convenience when you want your toast to have a darker shade or your food to cook a little longer.
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