The Breville the Compact Smart Oven is a compact countertop toaster oven designed for everyday cooking without taking up as much space as Breville's larger models. It has eight cooking functions, including Toast, Bagel, Bake, Roast, Broil, Pizza, Cookies, and Reheat, along with a Frozen Food setting. Its cooking chamber fits up to a 12-inch pizza and also offers three rack positions, while the digital display and dial controls make it easy to adjust time, temperature, and toast shade. It lacks some of the extras found on newer Breville ovens, though, like a dedicated Air Fry mode or temperature probe.
Our Verdict
The Breville Compact Smart Oven is a good choice for mixed use. You'll get excellent results with baking, thanks to its impressive temperature stability, so batches of cookies or a tray of roasted veggies come out cooked evenly. It also reheats leftovers very well, so that extra slice of pizza or container of takeout won't come out soggy or unevenly warmed. It's decent for toast, too, and gives you enough room to fit a 12-inch pizza for movie night. Its air frying performance is only okay, though, so if you're hoping to whip up a batch of crispy fries or chicken wings, you may notice some pieces cooking less evenly and taking longer to crisp up than you'd like.
Maintains very stable, even temperatures.
Preheats quickly.
Produces mostly crispy air-fried food.
Compact chamber limits larger batches and baking dishes.
One side of the bread toasts darker than the other.
The Breville Compact Smart Oven is excellent at reheating last night's leftovers. It preheats quickly and maintains stable, even temperatures, so your food is less likely to dry out or end up with those annoying hot and cold spots. Its smaller chamber also makes it practical for warming up a single portion of pasta or a small plate of dinner, so you're not firing up a full-size oven just to reheat one serving.
Maintains very stable, even temperatures.
Preheats quickly.
The Breville Compact Smart Oven is excellent for baking. It maintains very stable, even temperatures, so your cookies, cakes, and other baked goods come out cooked consistently, without those annoying hot spots that leave one side over- or underdone. Its compact chamber limits how much you can bake at once, though, so you'll need to work in smaller batches of cookies, and it won't be able to accommodate a larger sheet cake if you're baking for a crowd.
Maintains very stable, even temperatures.
Preheats quickly.
Offers three rack positions for flexible food placement.
Even heat distribution helps baked goods cook consistently.
Compact chamber limits larger batches and baking dishes.
The Breville Compact Smart Oven is just okay if you're hoping to use it for air frying. Most fries come out crispy, but a noticeable portion remains undercooked despite the long cook time. It lacks a dedicated Air Fry mode, too, so if you're air frying often, say for a quick batch of chicken wings or veggies, you may find it less convenient than a toaster oven built specifically for the job.
Produces mostly crispy air-fried food.
Some air-fried food remains undercooked.
No dedicated Air Fry mode.
The Breville Compact Smart Oven is decent for toasting. It browns most of each slice evenly whether you're making just four slices or filling the whole rack, though you may notice one side coming out a bit darker than the other. Toasting speed is also decent, and it won't slow you down even if you're toasting a full rack for the whole family, since it takes the same amount of time at four-slice and max capacity.
Toasting performance stays consistent at full capacity.
One side of the bread toasts darker than the other.
The Breville Compact Smart Oven has a decent cooking capacity for its size. It can fit a 12-inch pizza for movie night and offers three rack positions, giving you some flexibility whether you're baking cookies on one rack or roasting veggies on another. The chamber is fairly short and compact overall, though, so a tall casserole dish, a rising loaf of bread, or a big batch of cookies for a party may not fit as easily as you'd like.
Offers three rack positions for flexible food placement.
Compact chamber limits larger batches and baking dishes.
Performance Usages
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
This toaster oven comes in one color variant, 'Brushed Stainless Steel.' Here's a picture of our unit's label.
If you encounter another variant, let us know in the comments, and we'll update our review.
Popular Toaster Oven Comparisons
The Breville the Compact Smart Oven is a compact toaster oven that's especially well-suited to baking and reheating thanks to its excellent temperature stability and quick preheating. It offers more cooking space than the smaller Breville the Mini Smart Oven without taking up as much counter space as the larger Breville the Smart Oven, though the latter does give you more room for bigger batches and dishes. The Compact also maintains temperatures more consistently than the similarly sized Breville the Smart Oven Air Fryer Compact, making it the stronger choice for baking, though it has fewer rack positions and also lacks some of the Air Fryer Compact's extra cooking functions. The Compact is easier to clean than the Ninja Flip SP151, another toaster oven made for small spaces, and delivers similarly strong baking performance. The Ninja does a better job of toasting and air frying, and also has a flip-up design that can free up counter space when it's not in use.
If you're wondering what we recommend, see our picks for the best toaster ovens, the best small toaster ovens, and the best air fryer/toaster ovens.
The Breville the Compact Smart Oven is better overall than the Breville the Mini Smart Oven. The Compact offers a noticeably larger cooking chamber while maintaining a relatively small countertop footprint, making it better suited to pizzas, larger portions, and a wider variety of dishes. It also gives you more flexibility if you want to use your toaster oven for more than just toast or small meals. The Mini does a better job of toasting, though, and takes up less space, making it a good choice for very small kitchens. However, its smaller chamber is more restrictive if you regularly bake or cook larger foods.
The Breville the Smart Oven is better overall than the Breville the Compact Smart Oven. Its larger cooking chamber gives you more room for baking dishes, bigger batches of cookies, and larger meals, and it also delivers slightly stronger baking performance overall. The Compact is still an excellent baker, too, thanks to its very stable temperatures, and it has some practical advantages for smaller kitchens: it takes up less counter space, preheats faster, and is better suited to smaller portions when you don't need the Smart Oven's extra capacity. Space and quicker everyday cooking are where the Compact really stands out, while the Smart Oven is the better choice overall if you regularly need more room.
The Breville the Compact Smart Oven is better for baking, while the Breville the Smart Oven Air Fryer Compact is the more versatile appliance overall. The Compact maintains much more stable and even temperatures, which makes it the stronger choice for cookies, cakes, and other recipes where consistent heat matters. It also preheats quickly and is very easy to clean. The Air Fryer Compact, though, gives you more cooking functions and rack positions and is also much better at air frying, with a dedicated mode designed for crisping foods. The Compact is the better fit if you mainly want a straightforward toaster oven for baking and reheating, while the Air Fryer Compact stands out if a wider range of cooking options matters more to you.
The Ninja Flip SP151 is better overall than the Breville the Compact Smart Oven. The Ninja does a better job of toasting and air frying while still delivering a similarly strong baking performance, making it the more versatile option if you want one appliance to handle several different cooking tasks. Its flip-up design is also useful in smaller kitchens since you can reclaim some counter space when you aren't using it. The Breville, though, is much easier to clean and also has excellent temperature stability, so it's a particularly strong choice for baking and reheating. If you value simple operation, easy maintenance, and predictable oven performance over stronger air frying and toasting, the Breville is the better fit.
Test Results
As its name suggests, the Breville Compact Smart Oven has a fairly compact footprint, making it easier to fit on smaller counters, and its low profile helps with overhead clearance. However, it's still fairly deep, taking up about as much front-to-back space as some medium- to full-sized toaster ovens.
The cooking chamber is a decent size for a compact toaster oven. It has enough room for a 12-inch pizza, and the three rack positions also give you some flexibility depending on what you're cooking. The chamber is fairly short, though, so taller dishes or foods that rise significantly may be a tight fit.
- 10 x 10" enamel baking pan (25.4 x 25.4 cm )
- 10 x 10" enamel broiling rack (25.4 x 25.4 cm)
- 12.5 x 10.3" toast rack (31.7 x 26.2 cm)
- Crumb Tray
- User Guides
The Breville Compact Smart Oven has adequate cooking versatility. You get eight cooking functions, including dedicated settings for toast, bagels, baking, roasting, broiling, pizza, cookies, and reheating. Most modes let you adjust the temperature and cooking time to suit what you're making. The Frozen Food button is useful for foods straight from the freezer, since it automatically adds extra cooking or toasting time when using the Toast, Bagel, Cookies, or Pizza modes. However, its fan is fairly weak, which limits how effectively it circulates hot air and contributes to its mediocre air-frying performance.
| Function | Temperature | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Toast | Shade setting 1–7 | Based on number of slices |
| Bagel | Shade setting 1–7 | Based on number of slices |
| Bake | 120°F–450°F | 1 min–2 hrs |
| Roast | 120°F–450°F | 1 min–2 hrs |
| Broil | Low–High | 1–20 min |
| Pizza | 120°F–450°F | 1 min–2 hrs |
| Cookies | 120°F–450°F | 1 min–1 hr |
| Reheat | 120°F–450°F | 1 min–1 hr |
It's incredibly easy to clean after cooking. The non-stick interior and enamel-coated baking pan wipe down easily, and the heating elements are also spaced far enough apart that you can get a sponge or cloth around them without much trouble. Removing the crumb tray also gives you easy access to the areas beneath the lower heating elements, so crumbs and grease aren't likely to get trapped in hard-to-reach spots. Just be careful around the small metal guards inside, though, since they have some sharp edges.
It does a decent job toasting at full capacity. Most of each slice browns evenly, but one side comes out noticeably darker than the other, so the toast is uneven from side to side.
It makes decent toast with four slices at once. Most of the bread browns evenly, but there’s a noticeable difference between the two sides, with the bottom coming out lighter than the top.
Air frying performance is okay. Most fries come out crispy, but a portion remains undercooked, and it takes quite a while to crisp them up. There’s also no dedicated Air Fry mode, so it’s less convenient than ovens designed specifically for air frying.
It preheats very quickly, so you won’t have to wait long before you can start cooking. It also has a preheat reminder that lets you know when the oven is ready.
It has great temperature stability, so you can rely on it to cook food evenly and consistently. It maintains a steady temperature without overshooting your selected setting, and heat is also distributed very evenly throughout the oven, so you're less likely to end up with one part of your food cooking faster than another.