Just to be contrary, I guess… I’ve used my oven once in something like thirty years.
I used it to bake some sculpey for an art project.
Burned the back of my hand. Ouch!
So, by gum, it’s gonna be at least thirty more years before I ever use a doggone oven again!
But…my sister and b.i.l. use their toaster-oven all the time! They love quick-and-dirty quesadillas, or to heat up frozen waffles. For most people, it really does seem to be a very good lifestyle investment.
It must depend on the size of your TO. Ours is sufficiently small enough (we have this one) that the heating elements aren’t really that much further from the center of the oven than they would be in a slot toaster, and it makes fine toast. But I can see how a larger one would not produce satisfactory toast.
handy to place the TO on a cutting board.
this would prevent heat damage to your counter, if it happened to radiate heat.
also catches drips.
I love my toaster oven. It is a Sunbeam model and cost me almost peanuts (I forget exactly how much it cost. But it was like $20 or $30.
Can I tell you the very best thing about it?
The old toaster over I had, did not have any turn-off switch. In other words, if I fainted or forgot to turn it off and left my apt, it would start a fire.
But this one turns off after a specified time and rings a real loud bell.
The only improvement I would suggest is if it would come with a built-in smoke detector or an automatic shut off when it exceeded a certain temperature.
But, this new toaster over is really just a marvel compared to the old one. It has some other really good features too. Want to see a list? Google Sunbeam toaster ovens. I’m not trying to be snotty by telling you to Google. It would just take way too much space and I think it would annoy the other posters who aren’t interested.
But Toaster Ovens are much better than Microwaves in so many cases. Best bet is to get both because there are plenty of things that microwaves do better than Toaster Ovens and you can buy a used one in Craigs list for peanuts if you don’t mind buying used.
I’m the only one here,so I use the stove oven for storage and the toaster oven for everything else. It makes toast,roasts a roast,bakes a chicken,bakes a pie… Less to heat,so less electricity used…
Black&Decker… Dislike the knobs.
Take two slices of leftover pizza. Heat one in the microwave for 30 or 45 seconds. Heat the other in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for three minutes. Do a taste comparison.
If I had room for only one appliance, I’d trash the microwave in favor of e toaster oven.
Chinese take out places around here serve frail French fries so I use the toaster oven to make my fries crispy.
My little toaster oven makes far better toast than my old toaster. Perfect, even browning, and I can fit 6 slices in there at once. Just don’t forget to put it on the “toast” setting. 
I have a toaster oven from Oster and it was under $30 I think. It replaced a previous Oster TO in which the handle broke, but it was cheap enough to just replace. I love it and use it all the time. If you are satisfied with doing 2 english muffins/bagles/Eggos at a time, you can get one for under $30
We always had one in the house growing up, but I’ve never had one as an adult.
My issue isn’t cost or utility, but counter space.
mmm
My daughter took our old toaster oven to her new apartment and I couldn’t go a week without replacing it. They are very versatile. Just yesterday we used it to:
a) toast a bagel
b) cook stuffed mushrooms
c) heat up a roll
As kayaker mentioned, there’s no comparison for re-heating breaded items like rolls or pizza, which will get doughy, then hard, in the microwave.
The only downside is that they do take up a lot of counter space. In our old house, I bought the toaster oven based on the dimensions of the counter I had to work with. In our new house, I was able to buy anything, so I bought a Cuisinart from Costco. There’s very little difference in quality between the Cuisinart and the Black & Decker one, though I do like that the Cuisinart has a pull-out tray so that you can clean off all the bread crumbs.
You can’t top brown in a toaster so yes.
LOVE the toaster oven. You can even make just a few cookies in it, and have hot cookies whenever you want. (That’s a motivator, you have no idea.)
I like that you can use it and not heat up the whole kitchen. It’s great in the summer for just that.
Get one that will let you make 4 slices of toast at once. That’s the bomb.
I don’t have one currently because of counter space issues, but I’m looking at the counter now and saying “hmmmm”.
Our Black & Decker has that as well.
And, You can butter the bread before toasting.
Hmm, I suppose you can do that in a regular toaster, but well, you know you have to lay it on its side.
You can pick up one of those classic GE models for like $3-$5 at a thrift store and try it out to see if you like having one.
We did that about 15 years ago. And we’re still using it. (We actually got a spare newer one from one of the kids. But it was too small so we passed it on and went back to the old one.)
I have a Black and Decker I use for toast, but it’s been frustrating trying to use it for more oven like cooking. The main reason is that the size puts the heating elements in very close proximity of the food so the top tends to burn easily. I read reviews of people cooking chicken pieces or fish sticks in them and having it work, so it’s possible that I’m an idiot, though otherwise I handle cooking pretty well.
I have both. If I could only have one, I would have a toaster oven, but I find it takes too long to make the single slice of toast I have every day as I’m dashing out the door trying not to be late for work, so the little toaster gets counter space as well.
For everything else, the toaster oven rocks. Nachos… mmmmmm…
Is it possible to flip the rack over to put the food further from the top element?
My first experience with a toaster oven was when we bought one for our lake house because we didn’t want to go to the expense of buying a stove for it. I was amazed at how much that little appliance could do. It took care of anything we needed that we couldn’t grill outside.
When we moved out west and sold the lake house, I took the toaster oven with me. My old 4-slice toaster sits in the garage in case of emergencies, but the toaster oven gets everyday use.
