Oster Digital Toaster Oven

The Oster Digital Toaster Oven pictured to the left is the third Toaster Oven appliance that I’ve owned in the past four years. My previous two toaster  (The Europro and Black & Decker) are in the trash because they were both lousy for mostly the same reasons: They burned toast, they were difficult to use and they were messy. In fact, the Black & Decker went out with the garbage simply because some butter got inside the burners on the bottom, causing it to wreak of smoke and horrible fumes every time it was used. It was truly a horrible design. The worst part of both of the above toasters is that their analog dials made it nearly impossible to consistently toast bread without burning it. The only way to truly toast bread at the same consistency every time would be to have a digital timer. So, if you want to toast bread exactly 3:00 to get it medium brown, that’s exactly what you’ll get every time.  From the appearance of the Oster Digital Toaster oven, it would at least solve two problems of the previous two losers: One, there is a digital timer. Two, there are no slotted holes places for butter, cheese and crumbs to fall into and burn. By appearance, the Oster Toaster oven seems to have solved my two main problems. But appearance can be deceiving – how well does it actually work? 

Oster Digital Toaster Oven Functions and Operation

Extremely Simple Design and Operation

Oster digital toaster is made from a very clean, well thought-out design. With it’s brushed stainless steal appearance it actually looks great. In fact, it appears to be an appliance that costs much more than the $79.00 I paid at Walmart. Other digital toasters had some rather intimidating, complicated switches and dials for adjusting heat, time and temp. Too many features and not enough simplicity. While there is something to be said about the simplicity of the good old-fashioned, analog dial, it just doesn’t have the precision of digital electronics. The Oster oven has combined the best of both worlds.  The smart folks at Oster have combined digital precision with analog dials that you turn to the right or left.  There are only three dials to control. From Top to Bottom, they are Function, Time and Temp. Turning the top function button gives you 10 choices: Toast, Bagel, Pizza, Bake, Broil, Cookies, Roast, Warm, Defrost and ReHeat. Choose your function, then simply turn time and temp either to the left or right to decrease or increase. Could anything possibly more simple. There are a couple of additional buttons: Start/Cancel and Turbo for convection heating. When using the toast setting, you can only control the time, not the temp which actually seems logical. Unlike previous toaster ovens I’ve tried, the Oster digital, does not have any nooks and crannies where crumbs, grease, butter, oil and other things can get trapped, burn, smoke and stink up your house. The heating elements are thin, solid metal rods which wipe completely clean in seconds. The Oster digital oven comes with three wire racks of various sizes and a shallow-dish, steel tray for baking or broiling.

Oster Digital Oven Performance

There is one really annoying grip I have with this oven: It beeps very loudly when you first press the start button. When your bread or whatever it is that you are toasting or baking is finished, you get three more, obnoxious loud beeps. There is no way to turn them off. I suppose if you want your toaster to serve the dual purpose of an alarm clock for unwanted guests in your house than the beeps are okay. Honestly, why do appliance manufacturers do this? Aside from that gripe, I was extremely impressed with the performance of the toaster. The oven heats up extremely quickly and efficiently. The heating is very evenly spread throughout all areas of the oven. I was able to get toast the way I like it by selecting 3:25 seconds. I heated up a couple of brats in a very short time period using the roast setting. Things get hot quickly and evenly.  I thought the Oster Digital Oven was worth every penny of the $79.00 I paid for it.

Oster Digital Toaster Impressions

Pros

• Easy-to-operate Controls
• Fast, Even Distribution of Heat
• Precise Temperature Control
• Mess-Free, Easy-to-Clean Design
• Versatile: Functions as both Toaster and Full Oven
• Turbo / Convection Heating
• Retail Box makes a Great Cat Toy

 Cons

• Loud, Annoying Beeps
• Could be a Little Larger
• Has yet to Prove it Will Actually Make Unwanted Guests Leave