Instant Omni Plus 18L Air Fryer Toaster Oven vs Black and Decker 4 Slice Side-by-Side Comparison
Instant Omni Plus 18L Air Fryer Toaster Oven vs Black and Decker 4 Slice. The first one is the winner thanks to its overall efficiency.
Specifications
Design
The design of the Instant Omni Plus 18L 140-4002-01 Air Fryer Toaster Oven shows attention to detail and makes use of modern technology, which resembles the larger Ninja DT201 a lot. While not perfect, its strong points are more than enough to make up for the minor drawbacks.
Stood out to us were the combination of one nichrome and four quartz heating elements as well as the oven’s powerful convection settings. However, the spacing between the four rack levels made it difficult to place a baking pan to catch drippings while roasting a whole chicken with the rotisserie kit.
Featuring a standard design of a small toaster oven, the Black+Decker TO1760SS has all the basic features, with no noticeable strengths and weaknesses. The quartz heating elements may appeal to you if you want to opt for energy-saving devices.
Usability Comparison
The Instant Omni Plus 18L 140-4002-01 Air Fryer Toaster Oven is the opposite of a simplistic analog unit like the Cuisinart TOA-60. It maximizes its ease of use but that leads to some weak points in and of itself; the same goes for its user control.
The oven’s touchscreen LCD is very easy to operate with all of its separate cooking functions and feature toggles despite having only one master-control knob and a subpar color contrast. Due to insufficient space, however, the cooking chamber can get quite tricky to clean in case of big greasy messes.
Due to its small size, the Black+Decker has some obvious limitations when it comes to features of usability, especially compared to our top choices. For example, it has no non-stick coating to help with cleaning, and the control panel has a lot of room for errors. Moreover, its advertised advanced technologies are more misses than hits.
Performance Test
The performance of the Instant Omni Plus 18L 140-4002-01 Air Fryer Toaster Oven is consistently great. In particular, it’s excellent at baking/ air frying fries and roasting a whole chicken. This is thanks to its great design, strong convection system as well as useful accessories—including an air fryer basket and rotisserie kit.
The Black+Decker TO1760SS performed to various degrees throughout our four tests. It was at its best toasting bread despite a minor inconvenience from the timer. With baking pizza, french fries, and roasting a whole chicken, however, the oven’s low power output affected the results by quite a lot.
Overall Scores
Pros & Cons
- Informative and eye-catching package
- Smart Programs and cooking status bar
- Electrical safety feature for the door
- Convenient slide-out crumb tray
- Safeguards for all heating elements
- Complimentary app with detailed instructions and numerous recipes
- Helpful toggles
- Easy-to-clean stainless steel exterior
- 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
- Touchscreen digital displays need more contrast
- The master-control knob can be confusing
- No convection fan
- No internal lighting
- No safety mechanism for the door
Conclusion
The Instant Omni Plus 18L Air Fryer Toaster Oven is a medium-sized digital unit while the Black and Decker 4 Slice Toaster Oven (TO1760SS) is a small analog one without convection. The first contestant is the winner thanks to its convenient features of design and usability as well as overall efficiency.
The Hamilton has a basic design and three simple control dials with a stay-on function. On the other hand, the Instant has an LCD touchscreen with smart programs, audio cues, toggles, and cooking presets. It’s also equipped with a slide-out crumb tray, interior light, and tray-level indicators on the glass door.
Moreover, the Instant has a higher power draw, more heating elements, and a strong convection system. As a result, it consistently produced much greater results than the Black+Decker in all of our cooking tests, including toasting bread, baking pizza, roasting whole chicken, and air-frying fries.
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.
