Cuisinart Convection Toaster Oven, Stainless Steel, 16.93"D x 20.87"W x 11.42"H, TOB-260N1

This is the third large convection toaster oven I've purchased over the last 25 years. The first was an Oster and was so loud I could hear it anywhere in the house. It seemed the metal fan blades were rubbing/grinding on some other component. Next was a 16-year old TOB-195 that was finally getting frustrating because the start button was getting sloppy enough to trigger immediate stop as well. Since 16 years isn't bad for a toaster oven, I purchased this oven as a replacement.The first impression was whether the fan actually worked. There was the 60hz buzz of electricity in the heater coils. No real fan noise. Turned it off waited for it to cool, and checked for airflow right after turning it on. There is significantly noticable airflow in the center of the cool oven.In terms of cooking performance, I typically use toaster ovens for reheating items that don't microwave well and cooking single servings of convenience foods and pizza.Using turbo convection to reheat already cooked 1/3 lb hamburger and a brat: 8 to 8.5 minutes at "350" does the trick, prior ovens took 10-11 minutes.Heating kirkwood (aldi) red bag chicken crisps well if the the chicken is placed on a nordicware quarter sheet with rack. Not quite as good or fast as an air fryer, but not bad either.Cooking a "fresh" store bought pizza on the included pizza stone: directions say 400F for 18 minutes; it actually took 9 minutes after preheating stone at 450 then turning down to 400. IR thermo showed stone at 450 at start. Definitely crispier crust and more evenly browned cheese than cooking 18 minutes in big oven.Toasting bagels on bagel setting is 5.5 minutes. On toast setting its 4.5 minutes. The bagel setting keeps bottom doughy and cool (when bagels are kept in fridge). The toast setting gives expected result.Pros:- Incredibly quiet. Is it on? quiet. The beeper can be turned off or turned up on control panel. If you want to make bagels/toast early without waking anyone else up, turn off the beeper.- Rack position numbers now printed behind door near control panel.- Quartz style heaters glow in 5-10 seconds (vs 1-1.5 minutes for calrod); may make short cooks faster but makes no difference for long cooks.- Includes a real pizza stone and an enameled bake tray.- Default times are reasonable to keep auto shutoff from being too annoying- Remembers previous settings for each mode (temp, cook time, convection mode)- Can cancel "preheat" by activating turbo convection- Draws 14.25 amps at 117V per kill-a-watt. This means its capable of actually pulling 1800W at 122V (many appliances rated 1800W don't pull more than 12A or 1440W).- Fit and finish around door is reasonable. Its normal for steam to escape around door.- Fits a Costco take-n-bake pizza (the current rectangular ones are about 1/2" smaller than the rack in all directions). This warms the kitchen 1F (while using the big gas oven warms the kitchen 5F and the whole house 1-2F).Cons:- Light bulb is not user replaceable. Forced obsolescence. However controller only leaves light on 2 minutes at a time or an hour of use every 15 uses of the oven. Thats about an hour a week which means bulb *should* last ~20 years assuming its 1000 hour bulb.- Quartz elements heat fast but don't last as long as calrod.- Door has fairly strong spring that will slam itself shut if its simply lifted towards closed. Its necessary to grab and slow down closure speed to avoid loud noise and possible damage.- Instructions say to unplug when not in use. Twice. Items #2 and #15. However it has a clock like a microwave.- Instructions say not to operate under cabinets (Item #20).There are some reviews showing the plug melting/deforming and blaming the gauge of the wiring. Thin wire gauge will get warm and would melt the cord insulation if heated to failure. If the plug melts/deforms its because its heating at the interface between the prong and the socket due to resistance. Its likely that its very easy to unplug, meaning the socket is loose. If so, replace the socket with a new one (thats tighter) to avoid heating the plugs.

This replaced a Black & Decker that lasted 8 years before catching fire, so we had more than a little trepidation about ever owning another countertop oven, but we missed the convenience & didn't feel like resorting to a toaster. Read all of the reviews, etc. especially the bad ones, for everything that was being considered and finally decided on this exact model. Over the years the difficulties of cleaning (without destroying the heating elements) have rendered it something of a crudded up mess. Yes you can clean most of it, but there are just too many nooks and crannies to get to while working around the heating elements to ever be 100%. So after six years we started thinking about replacing it with one of the fancy Dan multi-function ovens that air fry, cook rotisserie chicken, etc. We make a lot of home made breads and pizza, so re-heating those was important to us, as was the ability to make god toast, and hopefully be easier to clean, from a company whose customer service doesn't suck. Yeah, well it appears that we were searching for a unicorn that doesn't exist, at least not yet.Here we are six years later and the darn thing still cooks as well as the day it arrived, or at least almost. Other than the accumulating artifacts that refuse cleaning, the only two issues we have are the door closure and the marking on the push buttons. The printing on the three selector buttons has completely work off of two buttons, so I ended up remarking them with an ink marker, but they still function fine. The door however is not. It feels as though the return springs are just worn out, which after 6 years of literal daily use I suppose is not too bad, but still seems a shame to replace the unit for just that. My work-around probably violates all sorts of recommendations, but it works; I pop riveted a rotating metal slide lock to the case to keep it closed nice and snug. It's an extra step to open or close, but it keeps the heat in, so not all bad. We generally don't bother with it when making toast, since the gap is pretty slim and you don't really need the heat to be contained for making toast, but for re-heating or baking a small pizza, it's important. It still does a remarkably good job of all of those things.The top and sides do get a bit hot, but I keep a spare pizza stone on top, so it poses no danger to the cabinet above. The racks are nothing special, but they do stay where you put them (I've read numerous reviews of some of the new ovens where they just fall as the ovens heat and expand) and they have no problem supporting everything from cast iron pans to a medium sized cast iron Dutch oven, so I consider that a win. We raise pigs, so we eat a lot of pork, and that includes lots of sausages and bacon. This of course can be extremely messy, but it does do a nice job of producing decent results as far as even cooking across a full tray.Would I buy it again? Well, why would I, this one is still chugging along, scars and all. So until it does finlly fail I think I'll just make do, and hopefully by the time it finally does expire perhaps someone will have finally developed that unicorn I sought, and learned how to operate a functional customer service concern.This last item was the biggest factor in my decision to not buy a new appliance. The only couple that I seriously considered were from Breville, Cuisinart of course, Cosori, and The Emeril Legasi branded. All had plenty of customer service horror stories, but Cuisinart's were much less numerous, and there was at least considerable evidence that they had made some attempts to resolve customer issues, where the other companies did not. Ultimately the Cuisinart has cooked well, which is the primary need that it fulfills, and other than the Breville, the other brands all seemed lacking in one area or another, so I'll just sit tight with my drawer-type air fryer and toaster oven with its baked on crud for now. It was never an easy clean, but at least it's not infusing our food with vaporized Teflon.

Lots of great features not found on others. Very high quality. Could have been a bit larger though.