Gadgetory

hi I'm Rui Chris for CNET and this right here is a Cuisinart CSO 300 steam and convection oven and this is a toaster oven that'll set you back 299 dollars so the first obvious question is why is it toaster oven worth $300 that's as high end as toaster ovens get well from Cuisinarts point of view it's worth it because of this this is the water reservoir that holds up to 1.4 liters of water and it'll pump that water into the toaster oven for steam baking and also steam broiling and also just pure steam cooking which is great for rice now if we just take a look at the oven itself it certainly looks like a high-end appliance it's got this nice sturdy stainless steel body it's got this blue LCD screen that looks great matches the blue reservoir it just looks like a high-tech high-end device and you like that a lot another small feature that I actually like a lot are these handles on the sides if you look at them just right they're located in the right spot and they make it really easy to pick up and carry around but one thing I don't like is that if you do move this toast driving around it leaks it makes kind of a mess it leaves these puddles and kind of spills a little bit it's always got water dripping out of it when you move it so that could be a little annoying the LCD screen is another great feature it looks really nice with the blue backlit display and it's just really easy to use it's got this circular dial that will turn and let you pick exactly what mode you want to use for your meal so all in all this is a very well designed well-constructed easy to use toaster oven and for $300 you kind of expect that right I mean it's got to be good if you're paying that much money for it and it is the real question though is how well does it perform how good is the food that it makes and we did a lot of tests we did a lot of cookie tests and toast pizza burgers chicken and of course the rice and a lot of the other unique things that this toaster oven can make that others can't we tried it all out and at the end of the day when it comes to the basic foods the foods that you can make in any toaster oven it doesn't do a better or worse job overall than any other toaster oven it's a little better I'd say with pizza maybe a little worse with cookie it's kind of close though at everything there wasn't really concrete data for this one it just sort of was on par so that means that the justification for the price all comes right back down to this team either the steam cooking is worth it to you or it isn't now for making rice and making really good moist roast chicken and some of the cool stuff you can do a steam it doesn't it's true it works you know we like the rice we like the chicken that cooked so if that excites you if that's something that you would love to try out and love to use in your kitchen on a daily basis especially then maybe this is the toaster oven for you if you want to buy a new toaster oven anyway if you want to upgrade and get a high-end model I would recommend the Cuisinart just because it offers that new functionality there are other high-end models that might cost thirty dollars less or something like that but they're not going to offer you steam cooking and for me that's worth a thirty dollar increase it's not worth the increase over a budget model like the Panasonic flash Express that we found as low as $90 on Amazon I would rather have that toaster oven than this one at that price but if I'm going to spend a couple hundred on toaster oven I'm going to get the one that can make the most types of food and that's the Cuisinart CSO 300 so for CNET I'm Rui Crist happy toasting