Customer Reviews

Breville BTA820XL Die-Cast 2-Slice Smart Toaster

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I spent about a year looking at toasters on Amazon. Needed one for my renovated house. I just could not bring myself to pay $128 for a toaster, but after reading features, was also unable to buy anything else. I convinced myself that it would look so great with my black soapstone counters and brushed stainless appliance junk that I should really consider it a renovation cost. Problem solved!
Toaster arrived last weekend, have taken several days off from job to make toast. First, let's just say how cool the thing looks and works. Yes, it is weighty, but I don't carry it around much. But, it's got these cool tech buttons that do all the heaviest work, like moving the toast up and down. Then there is that row of LEDs that flash to show how much toasting time remains. Also very cool! And it wasn't until I read revies here that I understood what "bagel" settings were. This one has 'em. "Lift and look" takes away some of the dark side of toasting, but is great for the anxiety-ridden. "A little bit more" is also fun, though there is no "little bit less". Anyway great fun and great looks. I can't wait to see how house-guests respond. I have to find a house-guest.
One of my biggest hesitations about the Breville, aside from humorous price, was the reviews suggesting it was unable to toast evenly. I immediately bought bread at Acme and found even toasting, slice after slice. The local sparrows were happy with the experiment and urged a repeat run. I guess reviewers here must have gotten bum units? I am surprised Breville does not want to take back the product they bought? I noted in the manual (RTFM) that they recommend a dedicated circuit (and what next, a dedicated toast house?), but they do say if it doesn't get sufficient amps it may perform poorly. I agree with reviewers that an examination of the heating ribbons was disappointing: they are a bit dim and patchy; for this price I was expecting an advance view into Hell.
Anyway, so far I still think !. Beautiful 2. functionality supreme! And all for only $129 or so!

I had two false starts: A T-Fal delux had slots too short for my favorite bakery bread, a Haier did a very disappointing job on English muffins (using the bagel setting) and did not toast both sides of bread the same. The price of this Breville is a bit hard to take, however it performs beautifully and is built like the sturdy toasters I remember as a kid while having very modern features. It has a "frozen" choice that actually compensates for your bread if it is frozen, as well as a 2 other features that make this a really good choice - the "just a bit more" button drops the toast for just what it says and works quite well, second, the "lift and look" button pauses your cycle while it raises your bread/bagel to check it. Handy if you are working with a brand/density of bread that's new to you. But the real selling point is that it actually toast both sides evenly - the outsides of the bread are nicely golden while the inside is still tender. That seems such a simple thing, but it's amazing how difficult that is to find.

It is hard to believe a toaster could be made into an exciting product. I bought it after reading a product description in Wired magazine. Clearly some thought has been placed into what it takes to make a good toaster.
Nicest feature `Lift and Look' which gives one the ability to `peek' at the toast without disrupting the toasting cycle. The countdown LED is nice. Finally there is a `A Bit More' button allowing one to toast an item a bit more. :) Overall very clever device.

I'm 44 years old and have been eating cereal all my life for breakfast. About 3 years ago I decided I had eaten enough cereal and needed to shake things up a bit. So, I decided that I would convert to eating toast and bagels for breakfast. Not so easy. There are a lot of bogus toasters out there, and I have had my share of them. I'm an aerospace engineer and am pretty picky when it comes to home appliances! They either burn it black in a matter of seconds, or there is no way to accurately predict the outcome of any given slice of toast or bagel, and they often look cheesy! I have a custom house and gourmet kitchen (Sub-zero and Wolf appliances), so I wanted a toaster that looked good on my quartz countertops. We are a family of three, and my old toasters were always 2-slice models, so serving 3 persons at exactly the same time was always a challenge (we have it tough - eh?). This Breville toaster fixed all our toast problems!

First of all, it is not THAT expensive, as there are some brands that push the price range that easily doubles the cost of this toaster. Indeed, it is a middle-to-high priced toaster but worth every penny. What do you get for your money? For starters, you get a toaster that actually works - it makes great toast! The buttons are pure simplicity to operate. The graduated LED indicators for the toast time duration is perfect - it is time-based, so it cooks toast exactly the same time each and every time. I find that 3 works well for English Muffin bread, 3.5 for Thomas' English Muffins and Whole Grain bagels from Panerra, and 4 for very hearty and crusty homemade bread. The fact that you can visually see how much time is remaining is a god-send, since no more guessing how much longer the toast is going to take (again, trivial to many, but necessary when trying to decide when to flip the eggs and pour the coffee - OK, so I'm an engineer and I need everything perfectly synchronized!) We make homemade whole grain breads that are quite hearty. This toaster toasts homemade bread perfectly. English Muffin bread tends to be delicate and tricky to toast, but this toaster does a fine job. Toast always comes out evenly toasted on both sides, thanks to the alignment racks that perfectly center any thickness of bread. I usually toast English Muffins on both sides for 50% of the time and then switch to bagel-mode for the remainder of the time - this makes a great English Muffin! The bagel function works great, and it only toasts the cut side of the bagel, obviously. The lift-and-look and a-bit-more features are perfect and I use these features quite often, especially when I've got an omelette in the pan trying to bring together a perfectly timed breakfast! Of course, I love the style of this toaster and the cast aluminum body just looks great in a high-tech and does not show fingerprints.

Here are some tips: It is usually worth it to preheat the toaster, as the first batch of bread always comes out slightly different than subsequent batches. So, it is best to start with a hot toaster, but not critical once you learn what to expect. I prefer to use bread at room temperature, as this provides the most consistent results. Varying densities of breads and bagels makes for too much variance in defrost and toast functions, so best to start with a baseline all the time. For delicate bread, it is sometimes worth it to flip the bread over (top to bottom) halfway through the toasting cycle, as this will help minimize burned edges, but this is more an issue with the physics of the situation than it is with the toaster itself.

If I had one improvement to suggest, that would be a lift function. I once had a toaster that had this feature and it was useful for smaller items, but this is a nit. Bottom line is this toaster works well, the outcome is predictable, the controls are easy to operate, and it looks GREAT! Highly recommend this product.

First, I'm a technology geek who is always attracted to gadgets. However, I'm demanding in that they must be high quality and work well. I want the best performance for the dollar and am usually willing to pay more to get it. I first tried the KitchenAid 4 slice toaster that has received high marks on this site. I opened box and immediately felt the parts were cheap and likely wouldn't last long.
I then decided to get the Breville 4 slice which by comparison is built like a "Sherman tank". It feels like it is twice the weight; the controls are simple and ingeniously logical. Important to us is that it toasts evenly, consistantly and every side of the toaster stays cool to the touch except for the very top (makes sense to me). The clean out trays are super easy to use.
My wife is the opposite of me - not impressed by technology and will usually look for the lowest priced item out there even if it becomes a "throw away" after 3 months. Even she felt the KitchenAid lacked durability and OK'd its return.
After my 15 second Breville lesson for her she said things I never heard from her before like: "Wow this is built so logically and well this will last forever"; "Boy that (lift & look) feature will save a lot of wear on this unit because that seems to be why other toasters break most- lifting up on the front lever spring to check how much it is toasted"; "This is the first toaster that had slots long enough for Rye bread".
Like I said she is never impressed by gadgets so what surprised me most after I did an errand was when she excitedly welcomed me at the door with "That was the best toast I ever had!" Who gets that excited over a toaster? Certainly not her.
My experience with Breville has led to my son buying the variable speed juicer (5 stars); I'm going to get myself the Breville Smart Oven and for our anniversary I'm going to get the Breville Coffee maker. By year end everything on our kitchen counter will be Breville. Do they make a microwave yet?

Over the past few years, my family has spent time with several of the most highly rated toasters, but each one has been a disappointment in one way or another.

Some claim to have slots wide enough for bagels. They do, but only if you pre-condition your bagel with a rolling pin. Otherwise, you're stuck. Literally.

Some claim to be durable. Gotta hand it to them -- they look really durable. Hint: the flimsy parts are hiding. You become acquainted with them when you inevitably take the toaster apart.

But, the main thing here is toast. Seems like it should be easy to get great toast, but it isn't. The landscape of crunchy bread is littered with potholes and land mines.

After a sampling from the Breville Smart Toaster, I now realize we've long been cheated of the simple but profound pleasure of correctly toasted bread, bagels, hamburger buns, etc. We've eaten a lot of counterfeit toast.

Correctly toasted bread has a texture, density, and -- lest we forget -- flavor -- that is addictive. We want it. We want that texture, that calculated crunch and -- yes -- that flavor.

The Breville stands alone in a field of high end toasters, able to satisfy that yearning. Yes, you are helped on your quest by slots wide enough for breads of all kinds, the mechanism that keeps your bread centered, the "bagel" "bit more" "lift and look" and "defrost" features, but those features wouldn't be worth a crumb if the Smart Toaster couldn't deliver on its promise of great toast.

But, the Breville truly does.

Do not settle for mediocre toast.

Buy this toaster.

A toaster, particularly a $129 toaster, should be expected to do one thing well - toast a piece of bread evenly! This Very Expensive toaster browned both pieces of bread much darker on the sides facing outward while the sides facing the center were lighter, and there's no "feature" fix for this. Also, this toaster does take about three times as long as my previous Sunbeam two-slice model did and much longer than most of today's less expensive toasters do that have heating elements that actually glow red hot - these nichrome ribbon elements are completely dim except for an occasional hot spot here or there. You should be advised that the toaster uses a three prong (grounded) plug, some older 1950's-60's kitchens may not have the proper/required outlet. And the end-of-toasting chime is so weak as to be inaudible from only three feet away. Maybe I just received a lemon (or other reviewers have yet to get past the initial "Wow" factor), but if you read other Breville model reviews it would appear that this uneven browning is an ongoing issue with most - if not all - of the Breville line of toasters. What A Shame - to get so close to perfection and then... quit! Makes you wonder... does anybody at Breville corporate headquarters actually test/use their products? What happened to QC??? So impress your friends (and perhaps yourself?) with all the bells and whistles, but the entertainment value will surely decline with time, you'll grow tired of the long wait for toast as your carpool buddies lay on the horn outside, and you'll still be left with unevenly toasted bread.

After much laborious research, (who thought it could be so difficult to find a decent toaster) I finally settled on and purchased this Breville toaster based on all the raving reviews (save for one) in spite of its high end price. Turns out, I should have paid more attention to the one less than stellar review as I've experienced the same symptoms as this reviewer. Why is it so difficult to make a toaster that actual toasts bread? IMO, if a toaster does nothing else, it ought to at least produce toast. Oh this does have a ton of super cool features and has a very high wow factor. I certainly got what I paid for in the wow category. The first piece of toast I made was great. So happy.

From slice number two and on, I haven't gotten a piece of toast that's brown on both sides yet. Like the other 2 star reviewer, the elements glow with very little red and only a few visible hot spots. The inside tends to brown while the out sides (both slots) do nothing but warm the bread. No wonder they tell you to place the open side of a bagel inward. It won't get brown otherwise. Although I'm still awed by the cool factor, (I'm sure that will soon wear off) I'm still lacking for producing a decent piece of toast. I agree, isn't there any level of quality control? Do the people who make these things actually test one every now and then? It would not have taken long to figure out that something is amiss if they had.

With all the 4 and 5 star reviews, maybe we just got the two units that would have failed inspection. So if you're feeling lucky, go ahead and buy it. You will be wowed and impressed by its LED's and features. But if you really need just a piece of toast, then you'll have to play the odds. Maybe you'll get one that produces real toast, maybe not. At least you'll have something to impress your family and friends. It just might not be toast.

I bought the toaster for the features. I have tried two different ones from two different batches. This is the deal. The side facing in toasts a little darker than the outside side. When it comes to toast, I doubt most would notice the difference if it was perfect on both sides. That being said, there is a solution to this. When the toast is two led lights close to finishing, raise the toast up to look and then turn it around and it comes out perfect. I know it should toast both sides exactly the same, but it doesnt, thats the reason for the four stars. Im keeping it though for the features and ease of toasting and like i said, butter, or jam the slightly darker side and you wont notice much of a difference. It makes good crunchy toast.

It's a nice looking toaster and its a good thing because you will be looking at it for a long time while it toasts (drys out) your toast. I thought it was slow so I finally timed it and then timed my 10 year old Oster. Yes its slow, 5 minutes to equal what the Oster does in 3 minutes. As mentioned in previous reviews it may be consistent, but it consistently leaves one side of the toast way darker than the other. I also got a reminder why they make long slot toasters, no way to put large pieces of french bread in without cutting them in half. I fail to see any point in having the toast S-L-O-W-L-Y go down and then S-L-O-W-L-Y come up, you waste about 10 seconds there alone. The "Bit More" button also has the same 10 second overhead before the minuscule heating elements start heating up. At 900 watts it draws 15 percent less power than my old Oster yet takes 66 percent longer, not what I would call efficient. It beeps when done I am told. My hearing is very bad so it's not totally it's fault. Anyway am sending it back and if anyone can suggest a long slot, toaster with serious heating elements that goes KLUNK when the toast is done, please let me know. Another feature that would be nice is to only heat one slot when only toasting one piece of whatever.