Top pick
Unlike most models, this pricey oven performs just as well on air fryer duties as it does on toaster oven tasks. It also has settings for bread proofing, slow cooking, and dehydrating.
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro is the best air fryer toaster oven we’ve tested (it’s also our upgrade pick in our guide to the best toaster ovens). Whereas some air fryer toaster ovens perform better as an air fryer or as a toaster oven, the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro represents the perfect marriage of those two appliances.
It did a great job with frozen foods. In our tests, it produced crispy fries with creamy interiors and fish sticks that were crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.
It also performed well with tasks that required gentler baking or roasting. The oven made a beautifully golden-brown roasted chicken and evenly baked cookies. It also toasted almost as evenly as the Cuisinart Chef’s Convection Toaster Oven TOB-260N1NAS, our runner-up pick in this guide and a top pick in our guide to toaster ovens.
It has a sleek design and an easy-to-navigate interface. It offers several preset functions that you won’t find on our runner-up pick. One of those is a dedicated air fry setting; the presets also include proof, cookies, slow cook, and dehydrate. However, if you’re serious about dehydrating, we recommend getting a separate food dehydrator, since the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro can’t hold much food in its dehydrating basket (though you could buy more baskets separately if you wanted).
It held a set temperature better than any other model we tested. This advantage is due to its PID controller, a more accurate type of temperature controller than the simple on/off variety found in most other toaster ovens. Since you can reduce the fan’s speed or turn it off, you can also control how intensely you want to blast your food with hot air.
It has an oven light. You can turn the light on or off manually; it also automatically turns on when you open the door or when the timer nears the end of its countdown (which is helpful if you don’t hear the timer beeps). If the bulb burns out, you can replace it with a 25-watt, 120-volt, G9 oven bulb.
It can adjust the oven temperature automatically midway through the cooking cycle. Breville’s “phase cook” feature allows you to program two cooking cycles back to back (Cuisinart offers a similar feature on the TOB-260N1NAS). Let’s say that you’re baking a pumpkin pie: Using the phase-cook mode, you could, for instance, bake the pie at 425 °F for 15 minutes and then program the oven to automatically reduce the temperature to 350 °F for the remaining 30 to 40 minutes.
It has a roomy oven cavity. The Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro’s large oven cavity can fit a 5.5-quart Le Creuset Dutch oven with a lid (though if yours has a plastic knob, we recommend using aluminum foil instead) or a 6-quart Lodge Dutch oven without one.
It also fits a 9-by-13-inch baking pan (without handles) and most 12-cup muffin tins, so it’s truly capable of acting as a secondary oven in your kitchen. If you use a quarter-sheet tray on each of its two racks, that’s equal to the cooking surface of a standard half sheet you’d likely use in a full-size oven.
It has a number of other features that make it feel luxe. Magnets on the door attach to the oven rack so that it glides out when you open the toaster oven (the Cuisinart TOB-260N1NAS has a similar feature that uses hooks), saving you from having to reach deep into the oven to retrieve your food.
The timer automatically pauses when you open the door and resumes when you close it. And the printed directions on the oven door are handy for determining the rack placement for each setting, so you don’t have to refer to the owner manual.
Its nonstick interior is easy to wipe clean. Among all the models we’ve tested, the oven cavity in the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro takes the least effort to clean. We’ve been using this oven for over a year, and the nonstick coating has held up well.
It comes with a two-year warranty and access to repair services. While Breville doesn’t sell replacement parts for any of the oven’s internal components, a representative told us that the company will pay for shipping to and from its service center if your oven breaks under warranty. If the oven can’t be repaired, Breville will send you an entirely new unit. And if the warranty has expired, you can still send your oven to the service center, and Breville will still cover shipping costs; you just have to pay a service fee.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
- This oven is very expensive. If you have high demands and expect this appliance to be both your air fryer and a great toaster oven, and if you can afford it, you’ll be happiest with the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro. But if you plan to air fry only every so often, or if you want to spend less money, the Cuisinart TOB-260N1NAS achieves similar results for far less money — it may simply take a bit longer to make your fries extra crispy.
- The “super convection” fan speed is loud. It’s still quieter than a hair dryer, but if you think the noise might bother you, we recommend getting our runner-up pick, the Cuisinart TOB-260N1NAS, which is very quiet on both its high and low settings.
- It didn’t toast bread quite as evenly as our runner-up pick. But it excelled at cooking just about everything else we prepared in it.
- We prefer Cuisinart’s ceramic pizza stone. The coating on Breville’s nonstick pizza pan will wear down over time. Breville does sell a separate pizza stone for around $30, though.
- It’s very heavy. If you have the space, we recommend keeping the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro in one place in your kitchen — it’s not something you’ll want to pick up and move often.
