You’ll save lots of cooking time—the convection mode in this toaster oven cooks food up to 25% faster by circulating heated air evenly around food as it cooks. When compared to all of our other cooking and baking tests, we feel the Easy Reach 4-Slice is best at toasting. However, the back-left side of the oven routinely toasted a little lighter than the rest of the oven. Should you encounter any problems with the FlashXpress under its one-year warranty, contact Panasonic.
Although it’s not hard to read the display dead-on, it can be tricky to discern from some angles. We found that the displays on the pricier Cuisinart and Breville toaster ovens were easier to read. Keep in mind that a large toaster oven can be pretty heavy and is more cumbersome to move; this means it’s more likely to live on your counter.
This model comes with the most basic accessories, including an oven rack, a baking pan, and a crumb tray. More-advanced digital models will alert you once the oven is preheated to a set temperature, but the Hamilton Beach lacks this feature. The instruction manual recommends allowing 5 minutes for the toaster oven to preheat. Even so, a charming, old-school ding does alert you when the timer goes off. We preferred this subtle sound to the ear-shattering beeps on some digital models, like the Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven.
However, I’m accustomed to precise digital controls and presets and wished for those as I turned the dials. We appreciated the compact size of the Breville Compact Smart Oven (BOV650XL), but it didn’t do well in many of our tests. It also costs more than the Panasonic FlashXpress, which we like better overall. The Zojirushi ET-WMC22 toasted so unevenly that the bread looked like someone with terrible aim had zapped it with a laser.
We’d also prefer dial controls over the FlashXpress’s blister-push buttons, but they’re perfectly usable and not as glitchy or mushy as others we tested. As you might imagine, an appliance that heats all these foods is going to get dirty. Luckily, most models are as easy to clean out as a traditional toaster, if not easier. There’s generally a tray at the bottom that catches crumbs, melted cheese or other debris.
The Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven is considerably smaller and less expensive than the other models we tested. It doesn’t sport electronic controls or a lot of fancy features and settings. While it’s baking performance was disappointing and it’s not large enough to roast a chicken, it shines at toasting and does a credible job of air frying. The Hamilton Beach has manual knobs that adjust the temperature (from 150 °F to broil/toast mode), the function (broil, toast, and bake), and the 30-minute timer.
It comes with two oven racks so you can cook more food at once—an addition we appreciate with the Cuisinart too. It also comes with an air fry/dehydrate basket rack and a broiling rack that fits inside its enamel roasting pan. But we still prefer the Cuisinart’s ceramic pizza stone over the Breville’s nonstick pizza pan (though hamilton beach toaster Breville does sell a pizza stone separately for around $30). As in other toaster oven air fryers, a shallow basket is provided for air frying food in a single layer. We were very happy with the browning and crisping on breaded chicken breasts. Brussels sprouts and frozen crinkle fries came out lightly browned and crisped.
This can be annoying if you’re not quite ready to put your food in the oven, but we think it’s easy enough to adjust the timer once you’re ready. The timer on our upgrade pick, the Breville Pro, also begins counting down once the oven is preheated. However, it will pause the timer when you open the oven door, whereas the Cuisinart doesn’t. The FlashXpress’s one annoying quirk is that you can’t add time or change the temperature midway through a preset cooking cycle (although you can change the toast shade settings). This means you have to turn the Panasonic off and back on again to adjust it. That said, the controls are clearly labeled and straightforward to use, so we’re willing to overlook this drawback.
Corner to corner, no other oven was as consistent (aside from the exorbitantly priced Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven). Similarly priced large toaster ovens (like ones from Breville and KitchenAid) concentrated heat in the center of the oven and had more significant fall-off of heat toward the edges. Additionally, as a Japanese appliance, the Panasonic FlashXpress is designed around degrees Celsius for temperature input.