Hisense BI624CBPGUK Review

Introduction

While an oven is an essential part of any kitchen, not all of us are dedicated cooks and wouldn’t use a wide range of advanced cooking options.

If you fit more into this category, the Hisense BI624CBPGUK could be of interest.

Design and features

• Large cooking space
• Basic controls
• High maximum temperature

Part of the company’s entry-level oven range, the Hisense BI624CBPGUK has a low price to match. At just over £300, this oven is much cheaper than many rivals. As such, it’s also a little more basic in terms of features than the next step up in the range, the Hisense BSA66226ADBGUK.

As an entry-level oven, there’s no smart app connection, although you can scan the QR code to add the product to the ConnectLife app. This gives you basic oven information and a shortcut guide to the product manual, which is handy.

To use the oven, there are manual dials. One is used to select the cooking mode, and the other to set the temperature. 

You’ll want the manual handy to work out what the icons mean, at least while you get used to the oven. Cooking modes are: top and bottom heat (with and without fan); large grill (with and without fan); slow baking; pizza oven; defrosting; and frozen food.

Impressively, the Hisense BI624CBPGUK can hit a maximum temperature of 300°C, which is handy for cooking pizzas and for some bread-baking options. 

Interestingly, there’s a steam clean option, but this oven doesn’t have a direct steam control. Instead, this mode requires a tray of water to be used for cleaning. Steam cleaning gets rid of some grime, but you don’t get as deep a clean as with an oven that has a pyrolytic cleaning mode, such as with the similarly priced Beko BBIMA13301XMP.

Internally, there’s 77 litres of space inside, which is about as large as you’ll get in a single oven.

Hisense provides two wire shelves and a shallow baking tray. These can be used in the five shelf positions, but there are no telescopic shelf brackets with this mode.

A large front window and useful internal lighting make it easy to watch how food’s cooking without having to open the door.

Performance

• A little intense at times
• Decent grill
• Gets the basics right

I tested the Hisense BI624CBPGUK using my regular tests. I started by loading trays of ceramic baking beans into the oven, and then setting it to 200°C. After leaving the oven for 10 minutes, I measured the temperatures.

In the middle of the oven, the front read 212.4°C and the back 220.8°C. At the top, the front was 219.1°C and the back 230.1°C. These figures are quite a bit above the target that I was going for.

When cooking oven chips at 210°C, I found the same thing. Although the chips were cooked through, they had several burnt bits around them. I’d dial the temperature back slightly from the target position. Overall, the oven used 0.515kWh of power when cooking, which is a touch higher than with other ovens that I’ve tested.

I cooked a baguette. Without a steam mode, the bread wasn’t quite as crispy as in an oven that has this mode, but the food was evenly cooked.

Finally, I used the grill to toast slices of bread. As you can see from the images, the bread was all toasted, but the bottom-right of the grill is warmer, and the food would do better if it were turned partway through for even results.

Should you buy it?

FAQs