Is Breville’s Compact Smart Oven Too Small For Me To Use In My Kitchen?

Credit: Breville

Breville’s Compact Smart Oven is smaller than Breville’s Smart Oven Air and Smart Oven Pro countertop ovens, as you might guess.

The question is, does the Compact Smart Oven (the XL650) deliver the same functions that the larger and more expensive Breville ovens do?

Let’s explore in more detail here! If you’re in a hurry and just want to see the Breville Compact Smart Oven in the store, you can see it here on Amazon, with the latest pricing and shipping options here.

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Use the table of contents below to skip to any section that you need to read right now, otherwise, just keep reading through to see whether this Breville countertop oven in worth the price.

What Is Breville?

First of all, if you’re not already familiar with Breville, Breville is an Australian appliance manufacturer that makes a lot of countertop oven models, including the XL650.

Breville is known for building a lot of functions into their countertop ovens, with design features like integrated warming surfaces, suggested rack position displays on the oven window, and a lot of cooking modes that make their customers really happy.

Breville BOV650XL Overview

The BOV650XL Compact Smart Oven is a non-convection countertop oven with 1,800 watts of power, 8 cooking modes, 4 heating elements and includes Breville’s built-in cooking system, the Element IQ System.

Note that it does not have a convection fan like the more expensive Breville Smart Oven Air and Smart Oven Pro ovens have. A convection fan and motor blows oven air around the oven so that the heated oven air is more evenly spread than without a fan.

The Breville Compact Smart Oven’s size is too small to fit a convection fan and motor, but there’s also less need for convection with a smaller oven since there’s less room for oven air to stagnate.

The trade-off for this Breville oven is compact size, smaller than higher-priced Breville ovens, for not having convection cooking. So, if you want a small-ish countertop oven then the Compact Smart Oven may be a good choice.

So How Small Is The Breville Compact Smart Oven?

The Compact Smart Oven interior 12 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and about 5 1/2 inches high. So the total size of the inside “box”‘ of the oven is about 0.46 cubic feet.

When you deduct the interior space for racks and heating elements, then the height is reduced to about 4 1/4 inches, so the “usable” interior oven space as calculated would then be about 0.35 cubic feet.

To put this size in perspective, this oven is big enough to fit a 12-inch pizza pan.

The exterior measures 17 wide, 15 inches deep, and 10 inches high.

Also, note that this oven weights about 15 pounds.

The BOV650XL Main Modes In Detail

Credit: Breville

Most cooking modes have default cooking times and temperatures. Once you start a cooking cycle, the oven will preheat until your chosen temperature is reached, when an alert will sound.

When the oven is preheated and the alert sounds, the cooking time that you’ve set will start to countdown. Once that cooking countdown has been reached another alert will sound.

Bake

Bake mode uses each of the ovens four heating elements, top, and bottom, to bake anything from pot pies, small casseroles, and muffins as well as frozen foods of all kinds, whether your own frozen dishes or packaged frozen foods.

Breville recommends using the center oven rack position in Bake mode, but you may need to choose a different rack position based on the size of your food or cookware.

Bake mode defaults to 325 degrees Fahrenheit but you may choose any cooking temperature between 120 degrees to 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 50 and 230 degrees Celsius.

You may also set cooking times anywhere from 1 minute to 120 minutes with a default cooking time of 30 minutes.

Roast

Roast mode is used for cooking thick cuts of meat or other dense foods thoroughly and for crisping the exterior of your food.

Breville recommends using the bottom oven rack position for Roast mode.

You may choose cooking temperatures from 120 degrees to 450 degrees Fahrenheit in Roast mode (50 and 230 degrees Celsius) and cooking times from 1 minute to 60 minutes.

Broil

Broil mode will use the top two heating elements at high heat to sear the top of any food you cook in this function, and the bottom two heating elements will use low heat to more slowly cook the bottom of your food. So, if you want evenly seared food, flip it oven halfway through your cooking time.

Broiling is used for all kinds of food from open-faced sandwiches, to many cuts of meat, fish, chicken, and other foods.

Breville includes an enamel broiling rack to use with Broil mode and suggests that you use the top rack position in Broil mode with the broiling rack.

There are only two temperature options in Broil mode, “HI” or “LO”, you may also choose cooking times from 1 to 20 minutes. The default temperature is “LO” and the default time is 10 minutes.

Reheat

Reheat mode is used to heat up food stored in your refrigerator. Think of Reheat as the “leftover” mode.

You can choose cooking temperatures from 120 degrees and 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 50 to 230 degrees Celsius in Reheat mode.

Cooking times may be set from 1 to 60 minutes in Reheat mode.

The default temperature in Reheat mode is 325 degrees Fahrenheit and 15 minutes of cooking time.

Credit: Breville

What Are The BOV650XL’s Specialty Modes (In Detail)?

Toast

Toast mode is designed to work with up to four slices of sliced bread or similar bread to toast to a level of “Darkness” that you can control.

This mode uses the heating elements on the top and bottom of the oven to heat or brown both sides of your bread equally (the Bagel function below only toasts the top side).

You choose the “Darkness” from 1 (light toast) to 7 (darkest) and the number of slices (from 1 to 4) by rotating the oven’s TEMP/TIME dial button one way or the other. To switch between choosing the “DARKNESS” or “SLICES”, just press the center of the TEMP/TIME dial.

Once you’ve made your selections, the Element IQ system will adjust cooking time for your selections and even for the existing temperature of the oven, since it may have already been in use. You will see the calculated cooking time in the LCD display.

You’ll get a sense of your favorite settings from repeated use and if you use the same settings every time, those settings are applied by default so you won’t have to keep adjusting them.

For Toast mode, use the center rack of the oven for the best results.

Bagel

Bagel mode toasts the top side of bagels or other thick specialty bread.

Choose the “Darkness” level (1 to 7) and the number of slices (1 to 4) by rotating the TEMP/TIME dial below the FUNCTION dial.

Turn the dial to the left for lower or lightly toasted “Darkness” or fewer slices, and to the right to increase either.

Switch between “Darkness” and “Slices” by pressing the center of the TEMP/TIME button.

Once you’ve made your selections, the Element IQ system automatically calculates a cooking time that will be displayed on the LCD display. Element IQ adjusts for “Darkness”, number of slices, and even for the internal temperature of the oven, whether it’s already warm from cooking something else or not.

Like the Toast mode above, the Bagel mode is designed to work best when using the oven’s center rack position.

Pizza

Pizza mode can cook fresh or frozen pizzas and is designed to use the heating element to crisp the top layer.

In this mode, you can select cooking temperatures up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (230 Celsius) and choose your cooking time up to 2 hours using the TEMP/TIME dial to the left to decrease and to the right o increase. Press the center of the TEMP/TIME button switch between temperature and time.

Pizza mode works best when cooking pizza in the center rack position.

The default temperature setting in Pizza mode is 425 degrees Fahrenheit and the default cooking time is 15 minutes.

If you are cooking a fresh pizza, just make sure that the Frozen Foods button is not selected. If the Frozen Foods button is on, you will see an icon in the LCD display that looks like a snowflake.

Press the “START/CANCEL” when you’ve selected your cooking time and temperature to start cooking, If you are using a pizza stone, put it in while the oven is heating up, an alarm sound will alert you when your preset temperature has been reached.

An alert will sound when the cooking time has been reached.

Cookie

Cookie mode is designed for cooking fresh or frozen cookies, as well as biscuits, cinnamon rolls, strudel and similar food.

Breville suggests using the center rack position with Cookie mode.

Like most of the other modes, in Cookie mode you may choose a cooking temperature anywhere from 120 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (50 to 230 degrees Celsius).

Cooking times in Cookie can range from 1 minute to 60 minutes.

The default temperature in Cookie mode is 350 degrees Fahrenheit and the default time is 11 minutes.

Also like most other modes, alerts will sound in Cookie mode when your preset temperature is reached and when your cooking time is finished.

Other BOV650XL Features: Fahrenheit-Celsius and Frozen Foods Button

The BOV650XL also has two buttons at the bottom right side of the front of the oven.

The Fahrenheit-Celsius Button

The Fahrenheit-Celsius button, the one with the “F/C” icon at the lower right corner of the oven display face will switch your LCD display setting between Fahrenheit and Celsius temperatures.

You may also use this button to convert one temperature to another. For example, enter 350 degrees while Fahrenheit is selected, then just press the “F/C” button and the display will read the temperature in Celsius, in this case, 177 degrees Celsius.

The LCD display will read either “F” or “C” to indicate whether Fahrenheit or Celsius is selected.

The Fahrenheit-Celsius button works in all modes except Toast and Bagel.

The Frozen Foods Button

The other button to the left of the “F/C” button is the frozen foods button and has a “snowflake” icon on the face of the button.

When selected, the Frozen Foods button will automatically extend the cooking time for thawing and then cooking frozen food.

The Frozen Foods button works in Toast, Bagel, Bake, Cookie, and Pizza modes. The Frozen Foods button is automatically turned on by default in Pizza mode, but you can turn it off if you’re cooking fresh pizza by pressing the Frozen Foods button/

You can tell whether the Frozen Foods button is turned on when you see a “snowflake” in the bottom right side of the LCD display.

What Comes With The Breville BOV650XL Compact Smart Oven And Other Features?

Included with the ovens is a 10 inch by 10-inch enamel-coated broil rack and a similar-sized baking pan.

There is also a crumb tray at the bottom of the oven that slides out to easily get rid of crumbs at the bottom of the oven.

To remove the crumb tray, shut the oven door, and pull out the rack at the very bottom of the oven.

The top of the oven has a textured design that is meant to be used as a warming tray to keep your food warm once you take it out of the oven. This area gets hot so be careful about what you put on it and what is above it.

So Is The Breville BOV650XL Compact Smart Oven Recommended?

Take a look at the oven’s size (see table of contents above), both the exterior and interior sizes, and see how this countertop oven fits in your kitchen. It may be a great small sized option for limited space and if you already have a full-sized oven.

If you’d like to see some larger Breville ovens, you can see our review of the Breville Smart Oven Air here and the Smart Oven Pro review here.

You can also see how the Breville Compact Smart Oven compares with other countertop ovens in this comprehensive countertop oven review here.

A lot of Breville customers are very happy with their Compact Smart Ovens for the size, price, and features.

The Compact Smart Oven also has enough modes and other features to allow you to cook a lot of different kinds of food. You just can’t cook large food. For example, the BOV650XL can fit a 12-inch diameter pizza pan or a regular-sized roast chicken.

We recommend buying an extended warranty with the Compact Smart Oven since Breville’s standard warranty is only good for one year. A one year warranty is too short for small appliances.

See the extended warranty options, current pricing and free shipping options on Amazon here.

New Kitchen Life is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.