Hamilton Beach 31401 vs Breville Smart Oven Pro Side-by-Side Comparison
Hamilton Beach 31401 vs Breville Smart Oven Pro. A comparison between a standard small unit and an elaborate large convection toaster oven.
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 Breville showed a lot of investment in its design from the exterior and interior to the accessories, especially compared to inexpensive units like the Black+Decker CTO6335S. For example, its carrying handles, interior safety hooks, convection system, internal lighting, feature toggles, and additional cooking functions. It does have some room for improvement, however.
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 Breville also shows investment in features of usability including the toggles and extra cooking functions in the user control as well as automatic mechanisms to increase ease of use. However, the actual delivery left a few things to be desired compared to the ones on our list of Best Large Toaster Ovens.
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 strong power output of 1800 W didn’t seem to help with the Breville’s performance in our test dishes as much as other toaster ovens with the same output, including the Cosori CO130-AO. It performed the best in roasting a whole chicken but not to an outstanding degree.
This unit is advertised as having the Element iQ System™ which is a smart heating algorithm for improving heat distribution. However, our test results showed no significant increase in the cooking time or evenness of caramelization.
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
- Useful toggles
- High-contrast digital display
- Non-stick interior
- Sturdy construction
- Easy-to-clean stainless steel exterior
- Cool-touch door handle
- Convenient slide-out crumb tray
- No convection fan
- No internal lighting
- No safety mechanism for the door
- No safety mechanism for the door
- In need of an additional oven rack
- Not very budget-friendly
Conclusion
The Hamilton Beach 31401 is a very standard small toaster oven while the Breville Smart Oven Pro is quite an elaborate large convection toaster oven. As a result, it’s no surprise that the latter is the winner.
The Hamilton has three basic analog control dials and no interior light to help with convenience. Meanwhile, the Smart Oven Pro has numerous cooking presets and additional toggle switches including internal lighting, convection, temperature conversion, and frozen foods. It also has a non-stick interior for easy cleaning which is a rare feature.
The Breville didn’t score the highest in terms of performance—all above average. It’s not as good as other same-sized units with the same power output but enough to win against the Hamilton’s below-average scores. Give credits where credits due, the Hamilton has a higher score in toasting bread than the Breville–one of the best for a small unit.
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.
