[imp0cat]

How do they compare to the top-of-the-line Bosch (ie. TAT861X)?

Seems to me that the Sage/Breville have more bells and whistles (a LED light count-down, bread type selector...) whereas the Bosch seems to be a more no-nonsense one with better hardware inside (quartz glass heating elements etc)?

[devilbunny]

Sorry for the late reply but been out of town and not checking. Those are toasters, not toaster ovens.

A toaster toasts bread (and waffles, or other thin flour things). That's it.

A toaster oven began as a category of device that looked like a tiny oven but was built to be a toaster that could do a little bit more than just toast bread. But it's evolved, and modern toaster ovens can take a quarter-sheet pan (it's based on US standard, so it's 13"x9", but more or less the same size is used worldwide in commercial kitchens), sometimes a little larger.

I have never owned a Breville toaster. I have owned three of their toaster ovens, two of which I've given to friends and family when I moved up in size. I don't turn my main oven on, at all, except for holidays, because the toaster oven heats up and finishes cooking the food before the big oven even gets up to temperature. And I live in the southern US, so extra heat in the kitchen is usually heat that the air conditioner has to remove - it very rarely is helping me keep warm (think AGA ranges - those would never work here).

I wait for the sub-freezing nights, of which we usually have 20-30 a year at most (no kidding), to run the self-clean cycle on the big oven.

[imp0cat]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I was specifically looking for info about toasters (not toaster ovens) because ours (quite old generic one) recently stopped ejecting toasted slices. I've also read quite a lot of positive Sage/Breville reviews and test results so that's why I was curious about real-life experiences.

In the end, I managed to track down one of the last Bosch models ( https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/bosch-styline ), which was a bit cheaper (but still quite expensive for a toaster) and seems to work fine.

However, they claim that this model "uses quartz heating for even toasting" - yeah, no. ;)

[devilbunny]

They have really superb build quality in all the ones I've had, but I've only ever used the toaster ovens (which are so good that they're my go-to wedding gift if it's someone I'm close enough to that I'd spend that much). Glad you found one that's working out for you.