Sage/Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Review: Quality but Pricey

In one look

Expert rating

Benefits

• Ten functions with programmed presets
• Well-made accessories
• Excellent results
• High quality design and construction

The inconvenients

• Sides get hot
• No clock
• Dear

Our Verdict

The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer is a great, well-built appliance that produces flavorful food. It’s a stylish option that will look great on your counter and is also versatile – it will even replace your toaster.

Best prices today: Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer

$349.95

If you need more cooking capacity, an air fryer oven is the perfect solution. Combining the fast, crispy results of an air fryer with the space of a mini oven, air fryer ovens can offer the best of both worlds. In this review, we look at the Smart Oven Air Fryer, a microwave-sized countertop oven with ten distinct cooking functions. If you’re in the UK, it’s under the Sage brand. In the United States, it comes from Breville.

Design and build

• Good internal accessories
• Removable crumb tray
• Four recipe cards

In the box you will receive the smart oven, a quick guide, four recipe cards and the internal accessories, which are sturdy and of good quality: a 30cm pizza pan, a rack, a grill rack, a roasting pan. a frying pan, a frying basket and a crumb tray that fits under the door and slides onto the bottom of the oven itself.

The oven is a beautiful shiny brushed stainless steel silver, although you can buy it in other colors. In the United States, there are eleven to choose from. The UK has fewer options: black truffle, black stainless steel or the Aboriginal Culinary Journey model, which is a beautiful black, orange and yellow model that highlights Aboriginal art, but costs double the price others. The model we tested is a lightweight presence on your counter; it doesn’t dominate.

The oven is about the same size as an average microwave: 5 inches (D) x 20 inches (W) x 11 inches (H). It measures 47cm wide and 28cm high, so it will fit under your wall cupboards with decent clearance and 37cm depth. The door, a glass window in a silver frame, pulls down via a long, sleek silver handle at the top of the door and increases the depth of the footprint by 23 cm/9 inches at the front.

On the right is the control panel. There are two large silver dials: one for time/darkness (toast) and another for temperature/slices. A smaller dial cycles functions up and down on the LCD panel above. These dials have a wonderfully smooth revolution; they feel well designed.

Then there are the buttons: one to change the display from Celsius to Fahrenheit, one to turn on the internal light, one to turn off the internal fan or speed it up, and one to use frozen food. There is also a large start/cancel button.

Above all, it’s the LCD screen. When lit, it’s a bright orange color: slightly glowing, to be honest. The functions are on the left of the screen, while the chosen temperature and time are on the right.

The light is on the left interior and illuminates the interior well.

Inside the oven, there are three rack heights. The highest level is for grilling, crumpets, and air frying; the middle setting is for toast and pizza; and the lowest level is for baking, roasting, reheating, reheating and slow cooking. Overall, the Smart Oven Air Fryer is versatile and spacious.

Performance and Features

• Good steam control
• Ten useful functions and presets
• Excellent results

The initial set up is simple. Unpack the oven, wipe the interior with a damp cloth, plug in the oven then set it to the pizza function and press start. The cooking cycle will last 20 minutes and once finished the oven is ready for use.

To cook, select the accessory best suited to your food, set the function using the dial, choose your temperature – or the color of your toast, crumpets or bagels – then choose your duration and the number of slices you want to grill or broil, and press Start.

There are ten functions: grill, broil, crumpet, bake, roast, pizza, warm, reheat, air fry and slow cook. Each function comes with a preset that you can adjust once chosen, but provides a rough guide for a halfway cooking time and temperature for that function.

The versatility of each function is excellent. For example, you can grill at three temperatures for up to ten minutes. You can toast up to six slices of bread or crumpets with a darkness level between one and seven. You can bake, roast, pizza, reheat, reheat or air fry for up to two hours, from 50°C to 230°C/120°F-430°F. You can also slow cook for up to 10 hours on high or low.

The different functions allow you to choose whether you cook from frozen, use convection or preheat the oven.

We started with toast: two slices on the toast preset. This function uses heat sources at the top and bottom of the oven. The result was crispy, slightly tanned, and we personally felt we needed something a little more toasty, so we increased the darkness and put the toast back in. The result was nice, with a good crunch.

We then experimented with the crumpet function: this function is designed to create greater heat on the top of the food than on the bottom to brown and crisp one side more than the other. We tried this function with cheese on toast and found the result excellent.

Then we air fry the chicken nuggets and fries at 185°C/365°F for 15 minutes. Later opinion was that the nuggets were “really very good” and “cooked more evenly than normal”.

We were very impressed when we cooked a platter of stewed chicken with Mediterranean vegetables. We roasted the meal for 40 minutes at 185°C/365°F and found the intensity of the vegetable flavor to be extraordinary, far beyond what we would expect from a conventional oven. We believe the Sage Smart Oven manages the steam created by cooking, venting it in a way that balances the water vapor in the oven and allows for a complete caramelization process, which resulted in a bomb of delicious flavor. The chicken itself had crispy skin and was cooked evenly and properly. Overall the meal was delicious.

Sage has implemented the “ElementIQ” system in this oven, which it says uses intelligent algorithms to direct power where and when it’s needed to create the ideal cooking environment. Apparently, sensors and digital PID temperature control eliminate cold spots for precise and even cooking. While we can’t really test this per se, we have to say that the food that comes out of the oven tastes delicious, so if that’s the result of ElementIQ, then it’s a winner.

One thing to note is that the sides of the oven get hot while cooking, so you need to be aware of that, and when retrieving cooked food, there is no removable handle to remove the rack.

What you see is exactly what you get with the Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer. There’s no clock function, so you can’t set a cooking start time, unlike most conventional ovens. But what you get is an oven with the temperature and timer features normally found on a microwave, arguably a better setup for modern lifestyles.

Pricing and availability

In the United States, the Breville Smart Air Fryer has an MSRP of $349.95 and is available at that price from a number of retailers, including Amazon and Breville. It costs more at some retailers, like Walmart.

In the UK, the Sage Smart Air Fryer has an RRP of £299.95 and you can buy it for that price from Amazon and John Lewis. It’s available from other retailers, including Currys, but is more expensive there.

There is no doubt that it is more expensive than other air fryer ovens with a similar capacity and feature set. Take a look at our roundup of the best air fryers we’ve tested for more budget-friendly alternatives. You might want to take a look at the HySapientia 26QT/24 Quart Air Fryer Oven if you’re looking for a large stainless steel appliance for about half the price. But we evaluate the build quality and results of the Sage/Breville model and think that if your budget can afford it, it’s a good buy.

Should you buy the Sage/Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer?

The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer is an exceptional oven with a wonderful range of functions. It produces tasty food, quickly and easily. If you’re looking for a countertop oven and air fryer and can afford it, seriously consider it – you won’t be disappointed.