The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is a small, high-end toaster oven. Unlike bigger models from Breville, like the Breville the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro BOV900BSS, it doesn't have a fan for air frying. However, it has several different modes, including separate settings for bagels and toast, and still includes some extra features, like an 'A Bit More' button to easily add time onto a cooking cycle and a screen that displays information about the settings you've selected. It comes with a baking tray and a wire rack.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is decent for mixed usage. Its cooking chamber isn't very wide or tall, which limits what you can cook in this small oven. That said, when baking cookies or a frozen pizza, its fantastic temperature stability helps you get good results. It toasts bread quickly and evenly and preheats fast enough to be a good option for reheating leftovers. However, it doesn't have an 'Air Fry' mode and isn't suitable for air frying.
Fantastic temperature stability.
Preheats quickly.
No air fry function.
Small capacity.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is excellent for reheating leftovers. It's not very big, which limits what you can reheat, but it has a decent capacity for such a small oven and can easily fit a plate or bowl of leftovers. It maintains a very stable temperature and never overshoots your selected temperature setting, which helps avoid drying out or burning the outside of your food before it's heated through. This compact oven also preheats quickly.
Fantastic temperature stability.
Preheats quickly.
Small capacity.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is fantastic for baking. It maintains an accurate, stable temperature during cooking, which helps you get good results when following a recipe and lowers the chance of your food burning or drying out before it's properly baked.
Fantastic temperature stability.
Uniform temperature in cooking chamber.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL isn't meant for air frying. It doesn't have a fan or an air fry mode, so you can only really bake foods like French fries, chicken wings, and vegetables, and it doesn't produce very crispy results. It's also quite small, so you don't have a lot of room to arrange your food in a single layer.
No air fry function.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is great for toasting. It can toast four slices of bread quite quickly. Some edges and corners end up underdone, but it makes mostly even golden-brown toast.
Toasts quickly and mostly evenly.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL has a decent amount of cooking capacity, especially considering its compact overall design. It can fit four slices of bread or the average frozen pizza, although larger 9" x 13" baking sheets won't fit. There's not a lot of vertical space for something like a loaf pan, either.
Won't fit a 12-inch pizza or a 9" x 13" baking sheet.
This toaster oven only comes in 'Brushed Stainless Steel.' Here's a picture of our unit's label.
If you encounter another variant, let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review.
The Breville the Mini Smart Oven BOV450XL is a small model. It doesn't have a fan for air frying, so this unit is best suited for toasting, baking, and reheating. Its fantastic temperature stability makes it a more reliable baking tool than other small toaster ovens, like the Hamilton Beach Air Fryer 31350 or the Black+Decker Natural Convection 4-Slice TO1756SB. The fact that it has three possible tray positions also sets it apart from other small ovens and can be useful when you want to place your food very close to the upper elements, like when broiling.
Unlike some other small ovens, like the Black+Decker Natural Convection 4-Slice TO1756SB, it has three possible tray positions, so you can use the upper position for broiling, a medium position for items like pizza, and the lower position for baking and roasting when you need more vertical space. The recommended position for each function is indicated on the door.
This toaster oven has eight modes that give you access to different ranges of temperatures and times. You can also use the broil setting on 'low' or 'high.' There are separate modes for toasting bread and toasting bagels. Unlike other settings, you don't select a time or temperature but choose from 1-4 slices and shade settings 1-7, which adjusts the cycle time. Unlike the Breville the Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro BOV900BSS, it has no fan, so you can't use it as an air fryer for foods that require fast cooking at a high temperature.
Here's a list of all the cooking modes and the temperature:
Function | Temperature | Time |
Cookies | 120°F - 450°F | 1 - 55 minutes |
Reheat | 120°F - 370°F | 1 minute - 2 hours |
Pizza | 120°F - 450°F | 1 - 55 minutes |
Bagel | Depends on shade setting (1-7) | Depends on number of slices selected (1 - 4) |
Toast | Depends on shade setting (1-7) | Depends on number of slices selected (1 - 4) |
Bake | 120°F - 450°F | 1 minute - 1.5 hours |
Broil | High or Low | 1 minute - 20 minutes |
Roast | 120°F - 450°F | 1 minute - 1.5 hours |
It also includes a few extra features not available with every oven: a screen that displays your selected settings, a button for switching between Fahrenheit and Celsius, and an 'A Bit More' button that adds some time to a cooking cycle without interrupting it.
It's decently easy to clean overall. The interior of the cooking chamber has a non-stick coating, which makes it easy to wipe clean. The lower elements are spaced apart enough that it's quite easy to reach between and below them. However, the top heaters are closer together, making it more of a challenge to clean above them. The baking tray has an enamel coating, which isn't quite as easy to clean as a non-stick coating. Traces of grease can be hard to eliminate, although soaking it in warm, soapy water helps.
This toaster oven doesn't have an air fry mode or a fan. If you use it for something like fries or chicken wings, a significant proportion is undercooked by the time some parts start to burn. While it's faster than some other basic toaster ovens like the Black+Decker Natural Convection 4-Slice TO1756SB, it's slower than most drawer-style air fryers.
This oven preheats quickly, which is normal for small ovens, and comes equipped with a preheat reminder.
It has fantastic temperature stability. The actual temperature is very close to the selected temperature setting during cooking and throughout the cooking chamber.