Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What do I want from a toaster oven? Capacity, easy cleanup, and control. Well, the Hamilton Beach 31401 offers 2 out of 3 unproblematically, but the third is a bit more complicated (literally and figuratively). First, the positives. When the box claims that it can fit four slices of bread, it means it. I was using some particularly wide Pepperidge Farm bread, and I could still easily get 4 slices in. I used this to keep a batch of fried fish warm, too, and it fit the entire pound of fried cod with room to spare. All in all, I doubt anyone would be displeased. The rack slides out, albeit not automatically like some competing products. So you so need to shield your hand to do so. The toasting action is even across the oven (easy to test with 4 slices), and the stated "oven" temperatures seem accurate, too. Cleanup is not difficult, with an easy slide-out panel. My issue with the thing is the control scheme. As you can see in the picture, there are three knobs. The top is temperature, the middle is mode, and bottom is timer (I guess). The bottom knob has two little icons - a light piece of toast and a dark piece. The space between these icons is... well, there IS no space between them. It's like playing a game of Operation! trying to find just the right "click" for the dial. It is easy to over or undershoot. Then, in addition, the temperature dial at top has to be set correctly to toast. Why would these interact at all? Toasting should have a hard-wired "correct" temp, and should disable the temperature knob altogether. We had several toasting failures because of this. My only presumption can be that the innards of this thing are entirely mechanical, and so it is a "dumb" toaster oven, so to speak. If you turn a knob, it does its thing, regardless of the mode you're in. Because it does what it sets out to do quite ably (once you figure out the controls), I give it 4 stars. But the hair trigger and the wonky dial scheme won't let me go any higher.