Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Ten functions with programmed presets
- Well made accessories
- Great results
- High-quality design and build
Cons
- Sides get hot
- No clock
- Expensive
Our Verdict
The Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer is an excellent, well-built appliance that produces flavour-bomb food. It’s a classy option that’ll look good on your countertop and it’s versatile as well – it’ll even replace your toaster.
If you need more cooking capacity, an air fryer oven is the way to go. Combining the quick, 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’re taking a look at the Smart Oven Air Fryer, a microwave-sized countertop oven with ten separate cooking functions. If you’re in the UK, it’s under the Sage brand name. In the US, it’s from Breville.
Design & Build
- Good internal accessories
- Removable crumb tray
- Four recipe cards
In the box, you’ll get the smart oven, a quick guide, four recipe cards, and the internal accessories, which are solid, good quality builds: a 30cm/12in pizza pan, a wire shelf, a grilling rack, a roasting pan, an air-fry basket, and a crumb tray that fits under the door and slides across the bottom of the oven itself.
The oven is a lovely, bright, brushed stainless-steel silver – although you can buy it in other colourways. There’s a choice of eleven in the US. The UK has fewer options: black truffle, black stainless-steel or the Aboriginal Culinary Journey model, which is a wonderful black, orange and yellow model that showcases Aboriginal art, but is double the price of the others. The model we tested is a light presence on your countertop; it doesn’t dominate.
The oven is about the same size as an average microwave at 5in (D) x 20in (W) x 11in (H). That’s 47cm wide and 28cm high, so it’ll fit under your wall cupboards with decent clearance, and 37cm deep. The door, a glass window in a silver frame, pulls downwards via a long, elegant silver handle at the top of the door, and increases the footprint depth by 23cm/9in at the front.
The smart oven air fryer is versatile and spacious
On the right is the control panel. There are two large silver dials: one for time/darkness (of toasted bread) and another for temperature/slices. A smaller dial scrolls up and down the functions on the LCD panel above. These dials have a wonderfully smooth revolution; they feel well engineered.
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 for frozen food. There’s also a large start/cancel button.
Above all this is the LCD screen. When lit, it’s a bright orange colour: slightly day-glo, to be fair. The functions are on the left of the screen, while the chosen temperature and time is on the right.
The light is on the inside left and illuminates the interior well.
Inside the oven, there are three shelf heights. The highest is for grilling, crumpets, and air-frying; the middle setting is for toast and pizza; and the lowest is for baking, roasting, reheating, warming and slow cooking. Altogether, the smart oven air fryer is versatile and spacious.
Performance & Features
- Good steam control
- Ten functions & useful presets
- Excellent results
The initial set-up is simple. Unpack the oven, wipe down the inside with a damp cloth, plug in the oven and then set it to the pizza function and press start. The cooking cycle will last 20 minutes and when it’s finished, the oven is ready to use.
To cook, select the most appropriate accessory for your food, set the function using the dial, choose your temperature – or how dark you want your toast, crumpet or bagel – then choose your time and how many slices you want to toast or grill, and press start.
There are ten functions: grill, toast, crumpet, bake, roast, pizza, reheat, warm, air-fry, and slow cook. Each function comes with a preset that you can adjust once chosen, but provides a rough guide for a middle-of-the-road cooking time and temperature for that function.
The flavour intensity was way beyond what we’d expect from a conventional oven
The versatility of each function is excellent. You can, for example, 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, cook pizza, reheat, warm, 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 either a high or low setting.
The different functions allow you to choose whether you cook from frozen, employ convection or the oven preheats.
We began with toast: two slices on the toast preset. This function employs heat sources at both the top and the bottom of the oven. The result was crispy, lightly tanned, and we personally felt we needed something a little more toasted, so we increased the darkness and popped the toast in again. The result was lovely, with a good crunch.
We then experimented with the crumpet function: this function is designed to create a greater heat on top of the food than the bottom to brown and crisp one side more than another. We tried this function with cheese on toast, and found the result was excellent.
Next, we air-fried chicken nuggets and fries at 185°C/365°F for 15 minutes. The subsequent opinion was that the nuggets were “very nice indeed” and “cooked more evenly than normal”.
We were most impressed when we cooked a chicken tray bake with Mediterranean vegetables. We roasted the meal for 40 minutes at 185°C/365°F and found the flavour intensity of the vegetables to be extraordinary – way beyond what we’d expect from a conventional oven. What we think the Sage Smart Oven does is manage the steam created by cooking, venting it in such a way that it balances the water vapour in the oven and allows a thorough caramelisation process to occur, which resulted in a delectable flavour bomb. The chicken itself had a crispy skin and was cooked through evenly and properly. All in all, the meal was delicious.
Sage has implemented the “ElementIQ” system in this oven, which it claims employs smart algorithms to steer power to where and when it is needed to create the ideal cooking environment. Seemingly, sensors and digital PID temperature control eliminates cold spots for precise and even cooking. While we can’t really test this per se, we have to say that food that comes out of the oven tastes wonderful, so if that’s the outcome of ElementIQ, then it’s a winner.
One thing to note is that the sides of the oven do get hot during cooking, so you need to be mindful of that, and when retrieving cooked food, there’s no attachable handle to pull out the shelf.
What you see is very much what you get with the Sage Smart Oven Air Fryer. There’s no clock feature, so you can’t set a time for cooking to start, unlike most conventional ovens. But what you do get is an oven with the temperature and timing functionality normally found on a microwave, which is arguably a better set-up for modern lifestyles.
Price & Availability
In the US, the Breville smart oven air fryer has an MSRP of $349.95 and is available at this price from a number of retailers, including Amazon and Breville. It costs more at some retailers, such as Walmart.
In the UK, the Sage smart oven air fryer has an RRP of £299.95 and you can buy it at this price from Amazon and John Lewis. It’s available from other retailers, including Currys, but it’s pricier there.
There’s no doubt that it’s more expensive than other air fryer ovens with a similar capacity and feature set. Take a look at our round-up of the best air fryers we’ve tested for more budget-friendly alternatives. You might want to check out the HySapientia 26QT/24-litre air fryer oven if you’re looking for a large, stainless steel appliance for around half the price. But we rate the build quality and results of the Sage/Breville model and think that if your budget can stretch to 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 terrific range of functions. It produces flavoursome food, quickly and easily. If you’re looking for a countertop oven and air fryer and can afford this one, give it serious consideration – you will not be disappointed.