Customer Reviews

Cuisinart CPT-190 Brushed Stainless Steel 4-Slice Toaster with Countdown Timer

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I thought this was going to be the perfect toaster. However, once again a toaster misses the mark.

I particularly like the countdown timer, because I always wonder how much longer it will take to toast my bread, but it would be nice if the counters only lit up when the toast control is pushed down. They do make nice night lights in the kitchen, though.

Deficiencies:
1. The slots are wide, but they are short, so thick bread will go in just fine, but not some wider bread types. 12 grain breads in particular tend to be wider, and the slices end up caught on the ends of the slots.

2. The first thing I noticed was that the center elements of the toaster did not get as red as the outside elements. Thus I was worried that the bread would toast darker one side than the other, and that was the case.

3. One side (2 slots) of the toaster refused to work on the third attempt. It would not latch down.

4. I had to set the control to 5.5 (the highest setting is 6) to toast multigrain bread to a medium color. I would guess that a setting of 1 or 2 would just slightly warm the bread.

This toaster seems to be optimized for bagels. I want a toaster that is optimized for toast!

When I was a kid, we had toasters that went tick tick tick, toasted the bread just right and then dinged, and didn't cost much. Why can no one make a decent toaster like that now?

I am pleased to say that this toaster make a perfect piece of toast no matter what type of bread/bagel/muffin, etc. that you put into it. Evenly browned on both sides, too, unlike many toasters. I love the count down feature which simplifies the age old conundrum of timing the toast so it comes out at the same instant the eggs are done. There is only one thing I don't like and that is having to unplug the toaster after each use---that is the only way to turn off the count down window lights. I guess you could just leave them lit but I suspect they might burn out in fairly short order. (The instruction book cautions you to unplug after use.) All in all, it's not really a big deal to pull the plug and certainly wouldn't keep me from buying this product.

Well, I'm going to have to disagree with those of you who have complained that this toaster doesn't toast evenly and looks cheap. It's not the highest-end look in the world and, yes, it does toast slightly more on one side than the other, but I'm refusing to downgrade it simply because one side is a shade darker than the other! I'm a graphic designer, so I know about tints. This one doesn't bug me. And, yes, the blue lights are goofy - I'll assume some engineer had too much time on her hands. Let's see, um...unplug it!

As far as the material the toaster is made of - I like it, it's not heavy like the last, cheap plastic one I had. Oh, by the way, stainless steel shows fingerprints. Big surprise, huh?!

My summary - buy the toaster if you like it - it toasts - that's what it's supposed to do. Oh, and the English Muffins come out just fine.

I purchased this toaster to replace another high end toaster whose only fault was that it only toasted on 1 side regardless of settings. I paid 30% more for the Cuisinart based primarily upon the brand name ... Big Mistake. It's nothing more than a $20 toaster with two annoying bright blue lights that stay on all day and night encased in a thin stainless steel metal shell with a lot of useless buttons. It burns everything on one side. Settings make no difference. It's either untoasted or burned ... always on one side.

The construction is cheap and the operation matches. You would do much better to buy a $29 toaster. My faith in Cruisart just went from 5* to 1*. One would think that in the 21st century, somebody could advance the state of the art in toasters. Not true. This toaster has the same internal heating elements and construction that our 1st toaster had over 50 years ago .. and it worked great! Unbelievable.

Bought it for the count-down feature, but the toast came out only cooked on one side. Only half the elements on the four-slice model worked.

This is not a cheap toaster - but it performs very poorly:
- uneven toasting - all four slots - top of slide of toast can be be crisp and brown, bottom barely toasted: just like kbaybob;
- extremely poor design for cleaning: small trays under each pair of slots allow crumbs to be emptied, but not larger chunks of broken toast.

Strongly recommend you check out alternatives!

Cuisinart CPT-190 4 slice toaster.
Looks good & is compact for a 4 slice toaster but what was the design engineer thinking when he had the electrical cord exit from the front center bottom of the unit. I understand that is where the controls are but they should have run the wiring from the connectors in the front under the base plate to the back and exited there as this unit already has a cord that is way too short and this only shortened it by another 10" unless you want to plug it in from the front. Does not make sense.Cuisinart CPT-190 Brushed Stainless-Steel 4-Slice Toaster with Countdown Timer

After years of making do with toaster ovens (several of them, all of which were mediocre at toasting) my wife and I decided to spring for a dedicated toaster. We bought a Cuisinart CPT-190. We have used it for several months, and have found it to be very good at making toast (which is, after all, the reason for buying it. It has a nice compact design for a 4 slice toaster and fits well on a narrow side counter. The stainless steel housing blends in nicely with our kitchen.

It produces reasonably consistent (in terms of color) toast from one batch to the next, it toasts fairly evenly, and it has a satisfactorily wide range of adjustment. It has two independent sets of controls for each half of the toaster. The backlit LCD countdown timer lets you know, down to the second, when your toast will be ready (yes, it's a little bit of overkill, but I'm a gadget freak) and it doubles as a night light.

However, it does have some drawbacks. First, and most annoying, it sheds crumbs. It has crumb trays that can be pulled out and emptied, but the trays don't catch most of the crumbs inside. Every time I pick it up it sheds crumbs, even after shaking it out, turning it over and shaking it some more. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this issue until after we had it for a few weeks, or I would have considered returning it.

Also, it has some minor usability issues. There are 3 LEDs on each side, next to the mode buttons, that illuminate when the corresponding button is pressed. This is helpful, but there's nothing to indicate that the toaster is on, except for the timer counting down, when none of the mode buttons is pressed. It should have another LED to indicate when it is on, or else the backlight in the timer display should turn off when the toaster is not on.

Another minor issue is the bagel mode, which is of dubious value: it lengthens the cycle time, but doesn't change the heat setting so that the inside of the bagel is toasted more (less?) than the outside, as some other toasters do.

Finally, the toast slots do not accommodate long slices of bread. I knew this when I bought it, but I opted for this model because of the compact square shape. Now I find that the short toast slots are more of a drawback than I had anticipated, and I would prefer a long slot model.

Ok I've read the reviews regarding this toaster not toasting evenly and I think I see the problem. If you are one who does a lot of toasting of only "1" slice at a time, then this is not the toaster for you. (Ahh...it's a "4" slice toaster) What I've noticed is that if you only toast one slice at a time or if you turn the temp up towards 5 or 6 you may get one side of the bread toasted darker than the other although when 2 or more slices are in, the uneven problem is minimal. Conversely, if you toast at least 2 slices at a time I found no problem with the evenness of the toast except at the higher settings which is minimal. If you make one slice often then it can be controlled by using lighter settings.
As to the lighted countdown timers, this is cup half full/cup half empty situation. We personally like the lights. They provide a built in night light for an otherwise dark kitchen and for its purpose, if they weren't lit they would be hard to see even with the kitchen lights on. The appearance is neat and clean opposed to the next model down that looks like it came from the Jetson's era. I would recommend this toaster to anyone except people who don't make more than one slice most of the time.

Great toaster. Works as advertised. Easy, even toast every time. The one thing we don't like about the toaster are the blue timer lights on the front of the unit. They function well, they are easy to read and they let you know when your toast will be ready so in that way they are great. But those timers, those lights are on all the time, whether the toaster is in use or not. So we now have another thing that plugs into the wall that constantly eats electricity. Sure you can unplug the toaster when it's not in use and we do but it would be nice if Cuisinart had made this toaster more energy sensitive.