Rival 1000 Watts 4 Slice Toaster Oven Bakes Boils and Toasts, Timer

When our old 1,500 watt toaster oven finally died, we searched the newer models, specifically those with the newer radiant quartz heating elements, which use somewhat less power.

The reason for this is our house was built in the early 1940's, with 10 amp wiring, which was standard for the time. And contemporary toaster ovens tend to put a strain on the electrical wiring of old houses. Plus, also having a 1,200 watt microwave oven in the kitchen, was really pushing things. And the power cord of our our old 1,500 watt toaster oven was always warm to the touch when operating. Not exactly what I would call safe.

We were attracted to the 1,000 watt Rival 4-Slice Toaster Oven, with its radiant quartz heating elements, but were not sure if its two heating element design (one upper and one lower) would be up to the task, since most radiant quartz toaster ovens on the market have four heating elements.

But our Rival 4-Slice Toaster Oven works...Read more

I've owned dozens of toasters in my long life, and this is the first EVER that doesn't do its job as a toaster. As an oven, it cooks pretty well. But everything I toast burns or toasts unevenly. There's no button to push to toast, you have to turn this dial past the light/med/dark settings, and it's almost impossible to turn it exactly the same amount each time, and if you turn too far, it's difficult to turn back. Also, in addition to the dial with light/med/dark settings, there's also a temperature dial... if I set it to "toast" and turn the other dial to medium, it burns the hell out of whatever is in there. So i tried setting the temp to 250 degrees and toasting at somewhere-near-medium, so my pop-tarts (or bread or whatever) get a nice dark brown line across the middle, leaving the edges raw. I've been using this thing for a month and can't get it to toast anything properly no matter what I do... even burnt my finger today trying to rescue bread!

As an oven, it works...Read more