Our older toaster finally, er, toasted itself and the time arrived to buy a new one. My requirements were for four-slice capacity and slots big enough to hold a bagel half. We found this model on sale at SmartBargins and took the plunge.

When it arrived I immediately unpacked it, plugged it in, set the control to a medium number and popped in some bread. A couple minutes later, I was smelling smoke! Whoops! Hit the cancel button. Up popped some no-longer white bread.

As it turns out, the darkness control is very sensitive. Turning it hard to counter-clockwise gives you warm but un-toasted bread. Moving it a little past "1" (the scale goes much higher!) gives you dark brown. If you are finicky about the darkness of your toast then you will probably go mad trying to get the setting exactly right.

Other than that, the toaster does an admirable job. The warming rack is great. The manual talked about heating croissants, not something we do every day. However, something that I do at least once a week is make hamburgers, and the warming rack is a great way to have toasted buns for the burgers. My wife loves this toaster for that feature alone.

The plastic case is very easy to clean, which you do not have to do very often as it does not seem to get very dirty. The crumb tray releases easily and seems to keep its contents corralled until you get to the trash. The cord is a little short, so this is a unit for use on the counter-top, not on the table.

It has been in use for 7 months now with no problems and a couple hundred pieces of bread passed through, so durability seems good. All in all a good toaster … assuming you are not finicky about the darkness of your toast.

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 35