Oven Reviews

This thermometer more than met my expectations. Its large and easy to read, has a nice design and is pretty durable. I love the Kitchenaid line, I own their beautiful cookware and several small applicanes. Keeping with a trusted name is important to me. I dont need the overhead of a digital unit, I have an older oven and a good reliable thermometer is important to me for baking etc.

I got hooked on the American Harvest Jet Stream oven years and years ago. That oven has to be the best way to cook frozen chicken fingers,french fries, hot dogs, etc. in the world. I have owned several and had good success.

The latest one I got was from Sams Club about 4 years ago. It was a new issue (back by popular demand) that had a digital readout, timer and temp controls. About six months ago this oven finally fell apart. To be more specific the electronics just basically would not start the oven anymore.

Just like Homer I started "The Odyssey" the quest to buy the new air oven. Believe it or not I applied for the new Amazon Credit card just for the $30 discount to buy my new oven.

At the time Amazon was out of the new Nesco (wiz bang) version of my favorite healthy fast food appliance JS-4000T. There was a "new" older model of the Jet Stream for 39.95 and this strange knock off Koolatron oven. If you know me you (and yes my friends do laugh at the way I think.) I ended up buying both the new Koolatron and the old-new Jetstream ovens.

Both ovens arrived (gotta love Amazon for it's out standing customer service and delivery quality) and I decided to use the Jet Stream first. Everything was there and the oven seemed 100% new, yet I thought it must have sat on a pallet for like 8 years waiting for a buyer. After only a few uses I heard strange grinding sounds (from the internal belt?)and the smell of ozone from the oven. Shortly after about 10 uses the plastic nob on the top more or less stripped. I contacted amazon and Duh... figured out that I didnt buy the oven from Amazon but from some 3rd party place. Oh Joy! I put that on the side and just wrote that whole thing off. $40 wasn't worth the hassle of getting another old junk oven and then fight for my money back... I opened up the Koolatron.

This is a strange oven. The external temp guage was missing but no big thing. It came with a whole lot of strange looking stuff.. a huge needle thing to "inject" flavor?? into meat, rods and a wire stand (that makes no sense whatsoever)to hold up the lid after cooking.

The Koolatron design takes up a WHOLE LOT of room on your counter. The Jet Stream goes on its side and actually hides very well. I got the Koolatron all setup and then ... it was DOA. A quick email and Amazon sent out another one. I then packed up the old and used the return tag to get rid of the dead one. (Love Amazon)

Well... the Koolatron has a thermastat that won't let things get over heated. I setup my normal chicken fingers and started to cook. What would normally take 8-9 minutes in the Jet Stream took 25 in the Koolatron. The chicken was not evenly cooked from piece to piece. The other day I tried frozen onion rings and exactly the same thing happened. One ring was soggy the other hard as a rock. It is pretty clear that the Koolatron does NOT get hot ENOUGH nor does the fan BLOW as hard as the Jet Stream. Very very sad as with the exception of the size on my counter, this oven looked like it beat many of the Jet Stream problems.

Long story short the Koolatron does not even come close to cooking as well as the Jet Stream does. Save your money. Actually I think it cooks "strange" as if favors some pieces and avoids others? Hidden AI?

Yes my wife is going to kill me but I am going to buy ANOTHER JetStream (the JS-4000T oven and start again.

If you are a Jet Stream Junkie like I am... the Koolatron is NOT the replacement we have been waiting for. Save your money and go with the orginal.

GENE
Las Vegas, NV 4/2004

Much quieter, faster than American Harvest's Jetstream, EXCEPT ... Jetstream's lid raises on a hinge. It can be operated in about 20 inches of counter space, 2 feet from surface to cabinet in height. THERE IS NO HINGE ON THE KOOLATRON!!!

I have a ceramic-cooktop, and don't dare put anything on the burners that might scratch its top. Unless you have enough room to put the lift-off-top of the unit to the side while you're removing the food, and another two feet of counter-space you can occupy as needed, forget it!

Come on, Koolatron, isn't there anybody in your organization who understands how a hinge works? Is there a hardware store nearby so you can ask for a demonstration?

I debated whether to send the unit back, decided to take it to the office. Where there is no cook-top, more counter-space, and putting the top down on it will only leave a grease-ring.

The instructions for assembly are worse than useless, I only have 23 years of formal education, there's a couple pieces of metal that have no discernable purpose.

this product is better than a microwave or any other type of oven and i would reccomend it at any! price.
truly the best and quickest way to cook with no hassle and no fat for those that are healthy eaters - takes a whole turkey and does it (from frozen) in record time - take note for thanksgiving.

We have had this toaster for less than 2 years. The bottom coil just went out. Save your money and buy something else.

I bought this toaster oven because I wanted one that looked sleek in my contemporary kitchen, and because I respected the Krups name. The "done" signal is the most high-pitched, LOUD annoying signal I have EVER had on any appliance .. I have had it less than 2 years and just this week the bottom coil died, so now only the tops coil toasts. I am on-line looking for a new toaster. I will NOT buy this one again.

We have had this toaster oven for more than a year (but less than two years)and now have really become disappointed in its quality and the poor product support coming from KRUPS. This is really too bad, as we have several other KRUPS kitchen appliances that we also use frequently and love, among them an Espresso Machine (our second one as we wore out the first one after four or five years) and a Coffee Bean Grinder.

The overall product functions and performance of this toaster/oven are outstanding, yet the simple things, namely all of the plastic membranes over the control buttons have cracked! We have a Toshiba Microwave in our kitchen that is 17 years old with plastic membranes over its control buttons and they are still in near original condition...I'm not even sure whether this might be a safety issue since moisture and liquids can now get into the controls. (As a much more minor negative on this product, we also noticed right after buying the oven that the LED display fogs up a bit when you toast anything with some moisture in it - we actually took back our first KRUPS oven believing this was a product defect but found it occurred on the replacement oven and have just lived with that quirk).

To make things even worse, we have now been told by Krups (both their North American headquarters and their closest authorized service (in San Francisco) that KRUPS offers no parts for repairing this toaster and that our best plan should be to buy a new one. We are stunned. This product has seen only typical household use by two adults and we paid three to four times more for a KRUPS product than other similar toaster/ovens because we believed in the KRUPS brand.

We have had this toaster oven for more than a year (but less than two years)and now have really become disappointed in its quality and the poor product support coming from KRUPS. This is really too bad, as we have several other KRUPS kitchen appliances that we also use frequently and love, among them an Espresso Machine (our second one as we wore out the first one after four or five years) and a Coffee Bean Grinder.

The overall product functions and performance of this toaster/oven are outstanding, yet the simple things, namely all of the plastic membranes over the control buttons have cracked! We have a Toshiba Microwave in our kitchen that is 17 years old with plastic membranes over its control buttons and they are still in near original condition...I'm not even sure whether this might be a safety issue since moisture and liquids can now get into the controls. (As a much more minor negative on this product, we also noticed right after buying the oven that the LED display fogs up a bit when you toast anything with some moisture in it - we actually took back our first KRUPS oven believing this was a product defect but found it occurred on the replacement oven and have just lived with that quirk).

To make things even worse, we have now been told by Krups (both their North American headquarters and their closest authorized service (in San Francisco) that KRUPS offers no parts for repairing this toaster and that our best plan should be to buy a new one. We are stunned. This product has seen only typical household use by two adults and we paid three to four times more for a KRUPS product than other similar toaster/ovens because we believed in the KRUPS brand.