Hamilton Beach 31401 Countertop vs Cuisinart TOB-40N Toaster Oven Side-by-Side Comparison
Hamilton Beach 31401 vs Cuisinart TOB-40N Toaster Oven. A comparison between a small and a medium-sized toaster oven, both with stay-on features.
Specifications
Design
With a basic design, the Hamilton Beach 31401 doesn’t have any exterior feature that stands out. It makes up a little for this with its interior having quartz heating elements with safeguards.
The Cuisinart TOB-40N has a simple design but with some nice attention to detail. To accommodate its spacious interior, the oven uses 1800 W.
Usability Comparison
While the Hamilton Beach 31401 doesn’t offer much in terms of usability, it also doesn’t cause any inconvenience. Although the analog control knobs can make it difficult to pinpoint an exact time and temperature, it wasn’t a big problem.
The Cuisinart TOB-40N doesn’t offer much in terms of ease of use. While the control panel is simple, not having a timer means you’ll need an external timer when using this oven. The oven posed no difficulties in cleaning but nothing to help either.
Performance Test
Our test results showed that the Hamilton Beach 31401 did a good job of making toast. However, it didn’t perform well in dishes that require a long cooking time and/or a high temperature, including pizza, whole roasted chicken, and baked french fries.
Our resulting test dishes were also mostly lacking in color, except for the toast. This was possibly due to the oven’s low power output in addition to having only two heating elements, unlike the Breville BOV450XL. One solution could be to decrease the amount of food compared to our test amount.
The Cuisinart TOB-40N performed well in making toast and whole roasted chicken despite not having a convection system. However, the lack of convection resulted in uneven surface colors on our test dishes.
Even though the oven runs on 1800 W, it wasn’t able to produce a good result in baking french fries. This made the oven pale in comparison to our top picks.
Overall Scores
Pros & Cons
- Lightweight and small size
- Easy-to-clean stainless steel exterior
- Cool-touch door handle
- Simple control knobs
- Stay-on feature
- Quartz heating elements have safeguards
- Energy-saving
- Spacious and non-stick interior
- Auto-slide rack
- Easy-to-clean stainless steel exterior
- Slide-out crumb tray
- Cool-touch door handle
- Stay-on feature
- High power output
- No convection fan
- No internal lighting
- No safety mechanism for the door
- No convection fan
- No internal lighting
- No safety mechanism for the door
Conclusion
Between the two toaster ovens, the Hamilton Beach 31401 is the winner at making toast. However, the Cuisinart TOB-40N claims victory in baking pizza and roasting a whole chicken. Neither has a convection system, so uneven coloration on the food was a shared weakness between them.
The Hamilton is a small toaster oven with only two heating elements. It draws just 1200 watts, which may help you save energy.
However, those same factors turned out to be problematic; foods that needed long cooking times or high temperatures like pizza, whole chickens, and french fries, came out subpar. Fortunately, you can mitigate this disadvantage by cooking in 1-person portions—smaller than the amount in our tests.
The Cuisinart has a spacious interior for its medium size. Its 4 nichrome heating elements draw 1800 W of power which should be sufficient for most foods. However, the oven didn’t perform well when baking french fries.
While both ovens have simple designs, the Hamilton is lighter and the Cuisinart is more sturdy. The Cuisinart has a slide-out crumb tray as opposed to the removable crumb tray of the Hamilton.
Both of them use 100% analog controls which are easy to operate. Interestingly, they both have stay-on features, though they get there in different ways.
The Hamilton’s stay-on setting appears on its timer knob. Meanwhile, the Cuisinart has no timer. This means the oven will turn on when you rotate the function dial to a specific function and stay on until you rotate the dial back to Off.
Behind the Comparison
Alan Nguyen is a writer and product reviewer at HealthyKitchen101. His major in English language teaching taught him to present concise information. In addition to his cooking hobby, he values the practical aspects of household appliances.
Tuyet Pham is an award-winning Saigonese chef passionate about delicious and healthful foods. At HealthyKitchen101, she develops recipes and collaborates with our Research, Testing, and Review lab to evaluate the performance of cooking appliances. Her assessments add a strong authoritative voice to our product scoring process.
Lap is Head of the Research, Testing, and Review Team (RTR Team) at HealthyKitchen101.com, where he directs and supervises the testing of kitchen gadgets and appliances.
