Customer Reviews

Cuisinart TOB-40 Custom Classic Toaster Oven Broiler

5 star:		(294)
4 star:		(159)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(68)

 

 

For the most part...just the looks alone are nice and clean. It doesn't look like a spaceship on the counter.
Nice simple straight lines and simple on / off / bake / broil / etc controllers.

There were later design ovens from this manufacturer, but for the price, and all the Basic Features, I figured how can I go wrong?
With 1800 watts for the total heating elements...right there that tells you that it is going to heat up fast...maintain quickly to attain the setpoint, and perform like a regular electric range / oven / broiler; but just in a smaller package.

Toast making is complete on both sides. Fast! And with no drying out of the toast bread.
I was looking for the ability to toast bread, without the bread sitting there in the oven just drying out on the inside of the bread; while the outside was browning. That is the problem with toasters that are Lower Wattage. It is a proven fact in the testing sequence of a toaster designed to do just that....make toast.
The setpoint maintains just that, with not much droop in temperature. It is quick to respond to maintain the setpoint (temperature selected) to do a fast cooking chore.
The crumb catch tray just slides out easily for cleaning which is a plus. My old toaster oven had to be turned on its side to flip open the crumb tray. Wow! Those crumbs really sat in there till they cooked themselves to the tray.
With the slide out easy clean tray...I clean the crumbs every two or three times I use the oven / toaster! Smart Design!

The only downside ...and it does not affect the useability of the oven; but it is annoying trying to see the settings plainly stamped in black lettering and numbering; but very very small. Just one step UP in the font SIZE would be a big improvement. I lost my 20 year old perfect vision some 40 or so years ago, and even with corrective lenses...I have to keep a little magnifying readers glass there just to see the settings of the controls. My 18 Y/O granddaughter who has perfect 20 /20 vision even has difficulty seeing the setpoints.
All In All....I recommend it highly. The functions and power of this little machine are absolutely great. It is definetely not in the toy division like some other products of the like are in.
I had to give this 4 stars**** only because of the inability to clearly see the setpoints on the controls that are printed so small. That's My Opinion Anyway!

Oooops! one more important item, is the fact that there are multiple slots to position the shelves / rack etc for the different applications of cooking / heating / toasting etc."NICE"

After a long search, I was unhappy with the selection of toaster ovens in my price range - my price range being as inexpensive as possible! My old Black & Decker toaster oven that I bought at my neighborhood drug store lasted for at least 10 years. I was totally happy with it. The cheaper new ones are not the same - they all have that timer dial for toasting with a space of 1cm (or less) to determine the shade of toast. I just don't like that type of control knob.
Anyway... I decided to spend a little more to get what I really want, and this Cuisinart has all of the functions that I like - the generous shade control, nicely spaced options on the function and temperature dials, an on/off switch for toasting, and a pull-out crumb tray.
It has two heating elements on both bottom and top which seem to help the oven heat up quickly and toast evenly.
Like all toaster ovens I have encountered, the top and back do get hot - the sides not as much.
I could not find the true dimensions of this toaster oven anywhere (even on Cuisinart's website & I don't know where Amazon's "product dimensions" measurements came from) so I'll post the dimensions as I measured them here:
16" W
9" H
13" D (That is WITH the "feet" on the back that prevent it from sitting flush against the wall [presumably for safety], but WITHOUT the handle, which adds 1.75" to the depth)

It is bigger than I am used to, but definitely not the biggest out there.

I am very, very happy with this toaster oven and am only withholding a star because I've only had it for a few days. That fifth star has to be earned for durability!

****UPDATE November 2012****
Well, it is NOT getting that 5th star. In fact, I changed my review to 3 stars based on . I have been happy with this toaster for 1.5 years. Then an element failed. It started basically melting and cracking, and I fully expected it to burst into flames at some point.
I contacted Cuisinart. The toaster iss still under the 3-year warranty, and they offered to send a replacement. I have to mail the current toaster to them, which would cost me about $20, and I would also have to pay Cuisinart $10 for processing/shipping the new one.
$30 seems like a lot of my money to spend replacing something defective, so I am still undecided about going forward with it, though I suppose it is worth it unless I simply want to buy a lower-end replacement. I do still like this toaster as a whole and have found it to perform well until its failure.
I've had two previous really cheap toasters that lasted 10 years each, so I'm very disappointed in the longevity of this one.

My more expensive, super fancy Krups toaster oven recently kicked the bucket after about 4-5 yrs of service, and it was time to replace it. While my Krups was a good toaster oven (before it died), it took up a lot of space on the counter, it was expensive to buy, and frankly it had a lot of features (convection) and interior space that I just don't use and don't think are necessary in a toaster oven. So when I shopped for a replacement, I decided to go downmarket a bit.

Problem is, the toaster oven market is bifurcated towards two extremes and IMO neither is ideal. On the low end, are super cheap pieces of junk. On the higher end, are expensive behemoths that take up all your counter space and have a lot of features that most of us will never use. Now I'll admit, for someone who lives in say a small apartment and doesn't have a regular oven, the second type may make sense. But I live in a house with a regular kitchen and I have a regular oven and a cooktop, as well as a gas grill and a big green egg. What this means is, I'm not going to be roasting a whole chicken or searing steaks or baking any cakes or cooking thanksgiving dinner in my toaster oven. What I mostly use my toaster oven for is 1) toast! and 2) heating up things like leftover pizza or empanadas or really anything else that will get soggy in the microwave but you don't want to wait for the regular oven to preheat when alls you want to do is heat up a single item, and 3) odd things like maybe an open faced sammich or something. So really, anything small that you want to heat up quickly yet still have it be crispy. I have a hunch a large percent of toaster oven owners use them pretty much like I do and want a quality product but don't want a $300 large convection toaster oven taking up all our counter space, but also don't want to trust the $20 hunk of junk that looks like it will die in 2 weeks and can't toast evenly.

This toaster oven is a good choice because:

1) It's simple - toast, bagel, bake, broil. The analog controls are simple to use, and unlike a digital keypad it "remembers" what your last setting was (for say toast darkness or oven temp), which you are likely to use repeatedly. Some reviews complained the controls are hard to read, and I don't find this to be a problem although I do have good near-sight vision. The crum tray is easy to remove, clean, and replace.

2) It works - nice even toasting. Heats up quickly for reheating items. I was surprised at how light it was out of the box, but it works well so this doesn't appear to be a problem.

3) It's a fair price - way cheaper than the expensive convection ovens, but not so cheap as to be garbage

4) Small footprint - doesn't take up much counter space yet still big enough for everything I want a toaster oven to do. Honestly if something can't fit in this thing I have no problem firing up the regular oven.

Now, there seem to be 2 basic complaints on this model and I don't find either to be a problem:

1) No timer - who cares? I'm only using it for toast (which does shut off when it reaches desired darkness) and to heat up small stuff that only takes a few minutes, I can hang around and keep an eye on it. Again, this seems like more of a problem for people who want to bake a cake or something and I don't know why you'd want to use a toaster oven to do that.

2) A lot of people complain that the toast comes out too dark - I'm puzzled by these complaints as I find it extremely easy to set the toaster to desired darkness. The medium setting comes out pretty much what I'd expect medium toast to be, and more importantly you have infinite adjustability with the analog controls so it shouldn't take you much experimenting to figure out how you want it. One person even complained they had this for over a month and couldn't get toast that wasn't burned - I'd say this person either got a defective unit, or they are severely challenged when it comes to the operation of small electronics and/or employing the trial and error method.

Overall - there should be more toaster ovens in this segment. If you don't routinely roast whole prime ribs or do hard core baking in your toaster oven, this should suit your needs well.

I need to replace an old Toastmaster toaster oven. The toaster was super-simple: Set the desired toast darkness, and press a lever to start toasting. After almost 20 years, it died. I thought it would be easy to find a replacement for it, but to my surprise, they don't make toaster ovens that simple these days.

My main requirement for needing a toaster oven as opposed to a vertical loading toaster was that I like to make toasted open-face sandwiches. Unfortunately, most of the toaster ovens that I saw while researching had several problems:

1) They required you to turn a dial to set the darkness each time.
2) The amount of space between light and dark was minimal, so getting it the way you want each time would be no easy task.
3) An annoying ticking sound.

Finally I came across this Cuisinart TOB-40, and this was the toaster for me. It was exactly what I needed in a toaster oven. It solves those 3 problems: You can set it and forget it. Adjustments to toast darkness are easy because there is a dial dedicated to setting it. There is an on/off button and *no ticking*. It also has the bonus of the rack that extends automatically when the door is opened.

If you're like me and need something that's more of a toaster than an oven, but is suitable for making open-faced sandwiches and for toasting larger items such as muffins, I'd highly recommend this one.

I LOVE this toaster oven! After reading about needing to spend $180 to get a decent toaster oven, and a couple of hugely dissapointing recent toaster ovens which went from raw to burnt way too quick, I was hugely relieved to find this one.

The toast setting is its own third dial, and there's plenty of room to adjust the degree of brown. You set dial 1 on toast, dial 3 on the level of brown, then press the "toast" button. Worked great (I can't tell if the mechanism is digital or some kind of manual timer, but it doesn't have a tick-tick-tick sound, and the done signal is a crisp beep-beep, like a coffeemaker.

The oven settings seem to work well too, but that worked on my other crappy toaster ovens. It's the toast that really makes me happy.

There are directions on three different settings for the rack (for different size/type baking), but so far little pizzas and toast are great.

An excellent, straightforward toaster. Yay!

I just ordered this unit based upon the three glowing reviews, especially about the toasting performance. Then I started to think about, hey, I didn't see a timer on this thing! So I went back on the site, zoomed in on the picture, an no timer. That's why the reviewers commented on "no ticking sound." So you put in your meal, crank up the temp, turn it to broil and get sidetracked. The only way you'll remember is when you discover the kitchen is on fire? Not good. It is downright dangerous, if not stupid, to not have a timer on a small appliance like this that gets as hot as any toaster oven does.

Si I canceled the order and I'm back to spend another hour or two trying to find a toaster oven that doesn't have a bunch of one-star reviews. How hard could it be to build a decent toaster oven? Our present one is a KRUPS, five years old, works like new, is amazing. BUT we have had to replace the touch-pad three times already and it needs it again. So guess what? The number one complaint on every Krups toaster oven is the the touch pads fall apart. They just keep on making an inferior part like that?

Still looking.

UPDATE:

OK, so I agonize over reviews before buying something as simple as a toaster oven. I guess I mush like doing that or I wouldn't do it. It was dismaying to me to read the reviews on literally dozens of toaster ovens only to discover that not one was devoid of some pretty major issues. I would think that after so many years of designing such a simple appliance, somebody would have gotten it right by now, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Back to the Cuisinart in question, I did finally buy this one, but only because it had the fewest complaints. One reason for this might be that it had only three reviews, all from people who were using it as a toaster and not as an oven. One ever remarked that one reason for her choice was the lack of a "ticking timer." I assumed that the timer was electronic rather than mechanical like on similar Cuisinart models, but alas, rather than electronic or mechanical, the timer was simply absent.

So here's my update: This thing is a terrific toaster. Bagels, toast, open-face sandwiches, whatever. It toasts evenly and just does it right, as proclaimed in the other reviews. The oven part works fine, too, and we kind of got around the no-timer issue by leaving a kitchen timer with a loud bell right by the toaster oven. So now I just make sure I am within hearing range of the timer when I do my 12-minute pizza.

I still hold that the missing timer is a HUGE design flaw, but one that I would rather deal with than having one of the others that either catches on fire, the glass door cracks, the handle gets hot enough to cause serious burns, it burns everything you put in it, the touch pad falls apart in a few months, ad nauseam. One other issue with this one, just as a caution, is that the back of the oven gets hot enough to melt the insulation off of the power cord, so make sure you don't bunch up the cord behind the oven and push the oven up against a wall. Actually, you need to intentionally NOT push it up against any surface that is intolerant to extreme heat, because (another flaw?) this oven does not have the protrusions on the back that keep the hot back panel away from a wall as many other toaster ovens do.

I changed my one-star to two.

Received this toaster oven about a week ago, and I love it. I just wanted a pretty basic toaster oven - didn't need a convection oven, didn't need something deep enough to bake a pizza. This is just perfect. it replaces a Cuisinart toaster oven we had for about 8 or 9 years, so if we get the same performance for $10 per year I'll be really happy. It looks good, easy to operate, and is easy to clean (the crumb tray just slides out). My husbands big issue was he wanted a toaster where we could just set the dials to what we use 90% of the time, and push a button to go. he didn't want something that had a lot of settings or dials which had to be set every time we turned it on. This fit the bill, and looked good in the process. All in all, we're very happy with the purchase, and look forward to using it for many years to come.

After trying the Breville Compact Oven (BOV650XL), which was expensive and never heated up properly when baking, and the Cusinart TOB-195, which gave me two second degree burns in two days because of the idiotically designed handle, I bought this one. It toasts perfectly (and can be adjusted to toast very dark toast, yay). The oven heats up to exactly the temperature indicated on the dial (checked with two thermometers). It broils things. It's large enough for my purposes, holding a small serving dish or a small pizza. I do not need it to be a second oven or a convection oven or cook a chicken. But to make toast, reheat food, melt cheese on things, toast nuts, it's just fine. No burns, either; the handle is plastic as is the opposing piece of the oven. The exterior gets warm to slightly hot, but not very hot. I don't care if it has a timer; I have a kitchen timer. I got it at a store that often mails out coupons that give you 20% off any purchase, so it was about $60. Just the right price.

I bought this unit to replace an old B&D; that had just burned out. I like the simple settings and the fact that you can leave the toast setting exactly where you like it and not have to reset it every time with a timer or series of buttons. I don't use it to make souffles. I use it to make toast and to bake/reheat stuff, so it has what I need. Preliminary results:

Bagel setting: Top elements glow much brighter than lower elements so that the top comes out crisp and browned while the bottom comes out less crispy. "Light" setting sufficient.

Toast setting: Both elements glow equally. Perfect toast. Again, the "light" setting was perfect for me, so do yourself a favor and start on "light" the first time you try it.

When placed in the correct position for toasting, the rack slides out when you open the door for easy toast retrieval. The crumb tray is accessible from the front of the unit -- I might actually remove crumbs from this toaster oven! Whether or not it can handle 6 slices of toast depends on the size of your bread. The toast rack measures about 11" x 11" so go measure your bread if that is critical for you. The only thing that I miss about my old toaster is that when the door was opened, the toaster stopped. To stop toast on this one, you need to press the little button, which is slightly harder to find than the door handle when you've entered the wrong toast setting and are in a panic. So far, so good otherwise. Seems like a solid appliance.

The biggest problem with most toaster ovens is that they make lousy toast. Almost any oven will heat up left-overs, and this Cuisinart will too. But it's shinning acheivment is that it makes the best toast of any regular toaster or toaster oven I have ever owned. The unit feels solid with clean, classic lines. Couldn't be happier.