Customer Reviews

Black & Decker TRO700S 4-Slice Toast-R-Oven, Stainless Steel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

It's hard to really know what you're getting when you buy a toaster oven on-line, sight unseen. This is an appliance that gets used frequently, so it is a good idea to see it first-hand. I chose to buy this at a local appliance store that sells it cheaper than here. But unfortunately, I had to return it--TWICE.

I looked around at a number of convection toasters, and this one seemed to fit the bill--decent quality, attractive design, good crumb guards over the heating elements, nice size for cooking a variety of things, and the Black & Decker name. My previous Black & Decker toaster oven lasted me over 10 years, so I was partial to the brand. WAS.

My first test was to check out the convection feature. I clicked the convection switch--nothing happened. On-off-on-off-on... off. Nothing. I tried it again with the oven on/off and the toaster on/off. Still nothing. It was completely dead. I called up Black & Decker and told them about it, hoping there might be some trick to it. Nope--my unit was defective. I decided to try it anyway.

I put in a London broil and turned on the oven. It heated up reasonably fast and did a superb job. I never thought you could cook a steak so nicely in one of these toaster ovens (less time and less energy than a full oven). I was a little dismayed at how much heat is transferred to the outside (it's easy to burn yourself on that stainless steel), but I was willing to overlook that.

The next day, I brought it back to the store to get a replacement--I figured I had just hit a little bad luck. I had the clerk open the box and plug it in first, so I could see if the convection fan was working (just in case the whole shipment the store got was defective). It did. I was happy and walked off with my new unit.

The next day I decided to make some toast. I looked at the dials and realized I needed to read the instructions. The design is a little quirky, in that the oven temperature control doubles as a control to choose whether the oven or toaster features will be used. There's also a dial labeled "timer", but it's only used for the oven. Most toaster ovens I've seen in the past have one control to set the intensity (light, medium, dark) and another to turn it on. This uses one dial that turns on the toaster as you rotate it to the desired toasting intensity, and it should countdown (like the oven timer) until it reaches "off".

I turned the dial to 'medium', as suggested by the instructions, put in the toast, and walked away to do something else for a few minutes. When I came back in the room, the toast was burnt to a crisp and the dial was still on 'medium'--it didn't move at all. I turned it off... then turned it on. Yep, there's no ticking sound, as heard from the timer for the oven function. I played with the dial a little more and could coax it to tick for a second or two, but then it would stop. DEFECTIVE AGAIN.

Well, that's it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me (yep, that's the cliche Bush couldn't get right). I brought it back to the store and gave up. I decided my time was not worth toying with a $60 appliance. I'm going to spend more this time and get something that WORKS reliably, has good heat insulation, and logical controls.

So, here's what I didn't like about this unit:
1) Encountering TWO defects, one in each unit I tried. This is shameful, Black & Decker.
2) The controls don't feel like good quality. I also don't like the ticking sound (when it works). It's disturbing if you're trying to read the newspaper next to this thing.
3) The stainless steel exterior gets extremely hot. You can easily burn yourself on it, as well as anything nearby. My old cheap Black & Decker toaster oven got hot, but not this bad--and it cooled off fast, while this TRO700S model remains hot for a long while. This is just downright dangerous.
4) The door doesn't have any rubber cushioning--it is metal slamming up against metal. If I was going to keep this, I would apply some heat resistant rubber pieces to buffer the sound.

What I did like about it:
1) It cooks well and even.
2) It has decent crumb guards over the elements.
3) It's a nice size for what it can cook.
4) It is a good looking unit.

Unfortunately, my likes couldn't outweigh my dislikes. And the quality problems are just ridiculous. These are BASIC functions that should pass quality assurance tests, simple problems like an ON/OFF switch not working or a timer dial not turning should never leave the factory.

I contacted Black & Decker and complained about my experience. They recommended I buy another and that it "probably won't have any problems". I'm sorry to say that it will take a long while before I consider a Black & Decker ever again.

Being a big fan of toaster ovens and have used them since I was kid, this is a good one. I almost bought a Cuisinart toaster oven as they dominate the store shelves, but checking out all the toaster ovens on display, this was the best. The knobs did not feel cheap like the others did and had all the features I needed. Just the basics. I use mine mainly for re-heating or crisping pizzas, pastries and toasting bread. It has a great updated look, compared to my old beige Black and Decker. Altho the price is higher than the old one, it has many improved features, like the crumb tray that slides out completely for cleaning. My only (minor) issue with this oven is the handle. The black insulated handle is fine, but where it attaches to the glass door, it is metal and not insulated. So, if you grab the handle too fast and your fingers accidentally touch the metal when it is hot, you'll get burned.

the convection benefit in the small space of a toaster oven is a useless feature, i suspect, for any toaster. things cook unevenly -- the vent on this unit is on the right side -- consequently the right side of everything you cook is done much quicker (or burned) before the left. you can turn the convection fan off -- but of course you paid more to get that feature. next time i won't spend the extra $$ for a toaster oven with convection.

First, allow me to say that the TRO700S is a great-looking unit. Stylish knobs and design, rimless glass front, etc. Another person had mentioned the nice crumb guards, and I agree.

That said, these units are inconsistent to say the least. I offer my experiences:

* Timer can stick on lesser settings. When toasting, if you want the product to only warm to "less than light", the timer knob can stick and continually heat up until its burned to a crisp.
* Heating is uneven on every setting.
* "Convection" is worthless in a small unit with a side vent. Again, this contributes to the uneven heating.
* Temperature gauge is WAAAAY off. I see another contributor claims theirs was 100 degrees low. Well, mine appears to be at least 100 degrees higher. The story:

We were baking two medium sized potatoes in aluminum foil at 350 degrees. After about fifteen minutes the entire inside of the oven was glowing hot and the aluminum foil began to blacken. My wife opened the door and took the potatoes out and the oven still continued to heat up. I reached over to turn the knob off, but it just spun around in my hand. The oven had COMPLETELY MELTED THE INSIDE OF ALL THREE KNOBS! It kept getting hotter, so we had to pull the plug out of the wall in order to turn it off.

Now the TRO700S is completely unusable, and I don't believe we would use it if we could. I have read multiple negative reviews of Black & Decker products in this price range and rest assured we will never purchase another Black & Decker product again.

This TRO700S was purchased from Bed, Bath and Beyond for $59 + tax. They refused to take it back, so we are stuck dealing with Black & Decker's reportedly poor customer service. This one is going in the trash (after disabling it), and our lesson learned.

For some reason, Amazon will list the same product multiple times, once for each vendor that sells it. This doesn't make any sense, as several vendors will end up causing several sections of reviews. A potential buyer could easily miss important reviews that happen to be for the same product sold by other vendors.

Here is the link to the other TRO700S product on Amazon (but sold by J&R):
Black & Decker TRO700S 4-Slice Toast-R-Oven, Stainless Steel

I posted a review there that I suggest you check out.

I guess we did better than some of the other people who posted reviews here. The toaster oven lasted close to a year. First the oven and oven dial stopped working and within a couple of days the toaster stopped working.

It wasn't the greatest to begin with. It toasted the top, but barely the bottom. You had to turn the toast over by hand to get it evenly done, and it had to be set to the max to toast bread at all. The oven temperature was a guess.

It was a challenge trying to even contact someone regarding repair/replacement. Black & Decker no longer owns/services their appliances. We spoke to someone at Fox International Ltd who basically said - too bad. Without a receipt (which I didn't have - it was a gift) we were out of luck.

I would stay away from any Black & Decker appliances since they aren't really "Black & Decker" anymore.

After reading several comments here about the TRO 700S toaster oven I decided to check it out in more detail. I purchased the oven about 6 months ago at BBB and have not been very happy with it. Basically, I use the oven to supplement other appliances to reheat leftovers, toast thick slices of bread, etc.

Some of the comments I read here raised my interest. The over/under heating problem was of great concern. I used a good temperature gauge to test the oven at 3 different temperatures. At each level the oven ran more than 50 degrees higher than the dial setting. I was afraid of melting parts so I did not take it up to 450 degrees. I recommend that you test your oven to see how it performs

Last week my wife decided to read the instruction sheet to find out how to use the convection process. Our regular oven and microwave have this feature and we know that you have to adjust the temperature and time settings to avoid overcooking. She told me she could not find any information in the sheet. I did not believe her. I thought she was just not reading it correctly. Wrong! She was right (as usual).

The Use and Care Book, an exaggeration, like everything else with the oven, covers a range of products from TRO 1000 through TRO 4000. As if they were all the same. I went to B&D's website for the missing information. Interestingly, I was redirected from B&D's website to the webpages for a company called Aplica.

Aplica does not show the TRO 700S in its product lines and does not have any "Use and Care Book" for the unit. After some online research I found out that B&D sold the business to Aplica several years ago and that Aplica pays a fee to B&D to use its name. This is similar to the fee B&D paid to GE when B&D purchased GE's small appliance business - toaster ovens, mixers, etc.- about 30 years ago. I am familiar with the old GE business and know that the "classic" toaster oven has not changed at all since it was developed 40 years ago. Although it does not look as fancy as the TRO 700S it does the job just as well and at a much lower price.

Aplica no longer manufactures toaster ovens or the other product it promotes on its web pages. It shut down or sold its manufacturing operations several years ago and now purchases the items from independent Chinese and Mexican manufacturers. Aplica only functions as a distributor. I suspect that Aplica leaves quality control to the manufacturers and does not care if ovens melt down or fail to function properly. According to its financial statements Aplica is also melting down and had large losses before it was acquired by a small group of investors. If you have a problem with any B&D toaster oven you better return it to the store for a refund. Don't accept a replacement. Aplica may not be around much longer to pay for returned defective ovens.

I purchased this unit from a local retailer. I was searching for something which would be not more than 17 inches wide and would sit on the counter, cook toast and the occationally bake something small.

On the outside of the user manual it says "Toaster-R-Oven, countertop oven" however inside the manual it warns against placing the oven under a counter. Well, how many people have counter space, with an electrical outlet, which is not under a counter? I sure don't. Once I turned it on I quickly found out why they recommend this. The unit gets dangerously hot on the outside. So much so, that I returned the unit.

If a child placed something on top of the unit, I am quite certain it would catch fire. The aluminum exterior conducts way too much heat to be safe.

I bought this item several months ago and after one month of daily use (used once or twice a day for toast and frozen waffles), the toaster dial failed. The convection oven switch when on made a funny noise but as I don't use that function often I ignored it. I called Black 'n Decker or rather Applica that handles the replacements. Sure enough they were more than happy to replace it and all I had to do was snip off the cord and mail it off. A new toaster oven arrived 10 days later - same model number. After a month of use, it broke again. Similar to what others wrote - the toaster dial this time did not turn off and we ended up with burnt toast. Imagine if I had walked out of the kitchen. Dangerous! So I called again and another one was sent (number 3). Well, this one worked for 3 months and this weekend it broke. This time the toaster dial would not stay on - I would turn it and it would immediately go to zero. So I am on the phone with Applica again and currently on hold. I am going to beg for no more replacements but rather some compensation back. We received a DeLonghi as a wedding present that lasted for 13 years and I couldn't wait for it to break so that I could buy a new one that would match our decor...silly me!

So in a nutshell, don't waste your money (or time trying to get replacements constantly). If I could have given zero stars I would!

I'm totally happy with my purchase. The toaster oven replaced and old black and decker that still worked, just looked old - this unit looks great, cooks everything super fast with the fan on, and also has a time - which my old unit didn't. For under $50 i think it's a great deal and i would definitely recommend.