Breville Smart Oven Pro (BOV845BSS) Review: Worth the Premium Price?
The Breville Smart Oven Pro is a six-slice countertop convection oven with 10 cooking functions, including a slow-cook mode that most toaster ovens skip entirely. It's designed for home cooks who want a capable secondary oven — or a primary one — for weeknight roasting, small-batch baking, reheating, and more. The short verdict: expert reviewers and 12,000+ Amazon customers rate it among the best countertop ovens available, with one honest caveat around toast performance that's worth understanding before you buy.
Product Overview
The BOV845BSS sits in the middle of Breville's Smart Oven range — above the discontinued BOV800XL and below the BOV900BSS, which adds air-frying for about $130 more. The key differentiator from cheaper toaster ovens is Element IQ: five independent quartz heating elements that reallocate power depending on the function selected. Quartz elements also respond faster and run hotter than the nichrome wire in budget models.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Power | 1800W |
| Heating elements | 5 quartz (Element IQ) |
| Cooking functions | 10: Toast, Bagel, Bake, Roast, Broil, Pizza, Cookies, Reheat, Warm, Slow Cook |
| Capacity | 6 slices of toast; 13" pizza; whole chicken |
| Interior dimensions | 12" W × 12" D × 3.8" H |
| External dimensions | 18.9" W × 15.9" D × 10.9" H |
| Interior finish | Non-stick coating |
| Included accessories | Oven rack, 12×12" enamel baking pan, 12×12" enamel broiling rack, 13" non-stick pizza pan |
| Price | ~$270 |
The slow cook function runs up to 10 hours with auto keep-warm — a genuine differentiator over the standard Smart Oven. An interior light with auto shut-off lets you check browning without opening the door and disrupting temperature.
Performance & Real-World Use
Element IQ delivers measurably faster preheat: the oven reaches 350°F in roughly 5 minutes, compared to 10–15 minutes for a full-size oven. Breville's claim of up to 30% faster cooking under convection is consistent with real-world results for roasting and baking.
For baking, roasting, pizza, and everyday reheating, expert assessments are strong. Reviewed.com found "incredibly even toasting, baking, and slow cooking" across their test battery and called it the best toaster oven on the market. AmazingRibs.com awarded it a Platinum Medal after it became the reviewer's primary cooking tool for daily meals — a meaningful endorsement from someone who tested it over sustained use.
Toast is where you'll find disagreement. America's Test Kitchen found the BOV845BSS consistently underbrowns toast even at its highest setting — a surprising weakness for a $270 oven. The independent Shouldit lab also gave toast a 6.8 out of 10, noting uneven coloring toward the rear of the oven. Reviewed.com reported the opposite: uniformly golden results. The discrepancy likely points to unit variance or differences in test conditions, but the pattern is too consistent across ATK and Shouldit to ignore.
The slow cook function works but requires more setup than a dedicated slow cooker. No slow cooker recipes are included in the manual, and users need to adapt conventional recipes by reducing liquid and time slightly. An initial calibration cycle is also required before first use — a 30-minute burn-off step that the manual buries rather than front-pages.
- 10 cooking functions — including slow cook up to 10 hours, which replaces a separate appliance on the counter
- Fast, powerful preheat — via 1800W quartz elements; reaches temperature significantly faster than a full-size oven
- Convection mode — reduces cooking time by up to 30% for roasting and baking tasks
- Generous capacity — fits a whole chicken, 13" pizza, or 6 slices of toast; serves 2–4 people comfortably
- Non-stick interior and slide-out crumb tray — make cleanup quick
- Color-coded rack guides and magnetic rack auto-eject — reduce burn risk when removing food
- Premium build quality — brushed stainless steel construction, sturdy dial controls, easy-to-read LCD display
- Interior oven light — for checking food without opening the door
- Toast performance is inconsistent — America's Test Kitchen and Shouldit found underbrowning at higher settings; if toast is your primary use, this is a legitimate concern
- Only one oven rack included — limits multi-rack baking; a second rack costs extra
- Requires ~4" of clearance on all sides — at nearly 19 inches wide, it claims significant counter real estate
- Setup requires a calibration cycle — a mandatory 30-minute burn-off before first use, which the manual doesn't emphasize clearly
- No slow cooker recipe guide — the slow cook mode requires adapting conventional recipes on your own
- Premium pricing — at ~$270, it costs more than twice as much as capable budget competitors; the performance gap isn't always proportional
The Breville Smart Oven Pro is one of the better-built, most versatile countertop ovens at its price point — its 10 functions, fast Element IQ preheat, convection baking, and slow cook mode genuinely cover the cooking tasks that send most people to a full-size oven. The honest qualifier is toast: independent lab testing from ATK and Shouldit found underbrowning where Reviewed.com found even results, which is too consistent a discrepancy to dismiss. For cooking, this oven earns its $270. For toast specifically, set expectations accordingly.
