REASONS TO BUY
Makes great frozen pizza
Easy to clean
Convection mode
Great toast
REASONS TO AVOID
Mediocre temperature accuracy
Only average baking performance
Black+Decker TO3250XSB Review
A convenient and reliable budget option with reasonable performance at a great price
Credit: BLACK+DECKER
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Our Verdict
If you're looking for an affordable yet effective toaster oven, the Black+Decker TO3250XSB is a great choice. Despite a below-average price tag, it offers a convection setting that allows for faster and more efficient cooking. It is also easy to clean, provides a sleek and straightforward interface, and excels at making toaster oven staples like frozen pizza, leftovers, and toast. It certainly isn't a gourmet machine — a slight lack of temperature accuracy makes it hard to get perfect and repeatable results for baked goods and more sensitive dishes — but for people seeking a utilitarian and inexpensive cooking device, it checks all of the boxes. To see how it ranks against the rest of our lineup, see our full toaster oven review.
Editor's Note: This oven review was updated on July 7, 2022, to reflect our latest testing results.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB provides better performance and more features than most other toaster ovens in its budget-friendly price range, making it a great choice for those looking to maximize the money they spend.
Performance Comparison
Credit: Laura Casner
Baking Performance
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB displayed good but not great baking performance in our tests. It will likely be plenty good enough for most people but may disappoint if you're looking to make more advanced, temperature-sensitive dishes. When using this oven to make chicken drumsticks, the meat remained fairly moist, but the skin only got crispy in certain spots and remained chewy in others.
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB performed well but didn't particularly excel in our baking tests.
Credit: Laura Casner
Cakes similarly retained moisture but displayed some uneven browning on the surface. The oven seemed to struggle a bit with smaller items, namely cookies. No matter what adjustments we made, the oven consistently sucked the moisture out of cookies and tended to cook them somewhat unevenly. Still, it's hard to ruin a cookie, and we still enjoyed the ones made in this oven. We found the convection mode to speed up cooking times significantly. This is a great added bonus considering convection settings are generally only seen on much more expensive models.
Ease of Use
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB features simple operation but largely lacks some of the extra user-friendly touches that many more expensive models offer. It utilizes a simple control panel with one knob to set the temperature, one for the cooking time, and one dedicated to making toast. This makes the operation quite easy and straightforward. However, the lack of an LCD screen means you can never tell exactly what the temperature is nor exactly how much time is left on the timer. We like the crumb tray, which we found to slide out quite easily with little to no spillage.
The controls are simple, but the lack of an LCD readout can be annoying.
Credit: Laura Casner
Temperature Accuracy
We found the Black+Decker TO3250XSB to run a bit hotter than its set temperature in our testing, often to varying degrees depending on the situation.
When set to 375˚ Fahrenheit and allowed it to preheat, our testing thermometer fluctuated between 400˚ and 425˚ — much hotter than the set temperature. When we cranked the temperature higher, that discrepancy shrunk a bit. For example, when we set the temperature to 400˚, the actual temperature never got above 410˚. When we cranked the temperature even higher to 450˚, the oven actually ran a bit cold, maxing out at 445˚.
Frozen Food
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB prepped all the frozen food we cooked in it adequately, but with some minor flaws. Frozen pizzas fared best of all the frozen foods. They came out quite even with slightly crunchy crusts and gooey cheese. Tater tots were subject to a bit more unevenness but still maintained a good texture. Frozen meals and leftovers were heated thoroughly without sacrificing too much of their moisture.
Toasting Performance
Overall the Black+Decker TO3250XSB made near-perfect toast in our tests. Both sides received an even amount of browning without any colder or hotter spots. Our only real complaint is that if you fill the oven wall to wall with toast, which comes out to eight slices, the slices around the edges of the oven will have some colder spots where they touch the wall.
The Black+Decker TO3250XSB makes great toast.
Credit: Laura Casner
Should You Buy the Black+Decker TO3250XSB?
For those whose cooking needs and fare are relatively simple, the Black+Decker TO3250XSB offers everything you need and then some at a relatively low price. While certainly not a high-performing gourmet machine, it still offers a lot of capabilities and conveniences a relatively inexpensive package. This combination makes it a great overall value for those shopping at the budget end of the spectrum.
What Other Toaster Oven Should You Consider?
If your budget is super tight, it is hard to do better than the Black + Decker. However, if you can stretch your dollar or have a more generous budget, the Breville Mini Smart Oven offers better baking and toasting capabilities with accurate temperature testing. It will cost about double that of the Black + Decker, but is worth it depending on your goals.
—
Max Mutter and Michelle Powell
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