This review is for - Oster 2-Slice Toaster with Advanced Toast Technology, Stainless Steel =============================== Appearance Very nice looking appliance that reminds me of the metal toasters from the 1960's. But it does like to show fingerprints and smudges - even when I don't remember touching the darned thing. So I keep a microfiber cloth in a kitchen drawer to touch it up every now and then. Functions This toaster is advertised as having 'Advanced Toast Technology' but I didn't see any explanation of that term in the documentation - although it may be in there somewhere. My guess is the marketers are referring to the three buttons that light up, located on either side of the toasting-darkness knob. The buttons are labeled Bagel, Frozen, and Cancel, but I also didn't see anything in the included documentation explaining exactly what to expect when using the Bagel and Frozen buttons. Performance As with most toasters, there's a lever that must be pressed down to lower the bread into the toaster and turn the heating elements on. I found that the lever has to be 'very' firmly pressed down for the platform to lock into the toasting position. Only time will tell if this is normal, or whether it's an indication that something is amiss. As expected the Cancel button immediately raises the platform the bread sits on, and turns the heating coils off. At the end of one toasting cycle I had a bagel get stuck, such that it kept the platform from raising and the coils from turning off. Pressing the Cancel button did nothing because the bagel was holding the platform down, so I had to pull up on the lever. To manually raise the platform in this situation, enough force had to be applied that I thought it might break. But it didn't, and the toaster still works well. (Maybe I should have pressed the Cancel button while lifting the lever.) My tests of the Bagel and Frozen buttons did not show any advantages to using them. Using the same toasting darkness setting I initially set for unfrozen sandwich bread, all subsequent tests of button combinations for frozen and unfrozen bagels and sandwich bread returned the same results. The Frozen and Bagel settings 'may' lengthen the toasting cycle, but my tests did not show a meaningful difference. A sentence or two in the documentation explaining exactly what to expect from these buttons would have been helpful. Bread slices are toasted slightly darker on the sides closest to the outside of the toaster, but it's usually only noticeable if I'm looking for it. It Gets Hot After one cycle of toasting 2 slices of bread, the top of the toaster gets very warm, but nowhere near warm enough to burn my skin. After running the toaster two cycles back-to-back, the top is warm enough to make me think twice about touching the toaster top. After 3+ cycles the top feels hot enough to provide a significant burn, if I were to leave my hand in contact. My take... so what? It's a toaster that works by running electricity through thin wires that get red-hot. So enjoy your toast and use common sense, especially if young children have access to it. And if you do touch the top of the toaster when it's hot, your automatic reflexes should force you to retract your hand before you get a skin burn - because you'll never actually touch the red-hot wires. Common Sense Tip: Do not use the toaster when it's sitting directly under a cabinet as the rising heat will eventually discolor the paint or finish. And of course there's always a fire danger if the cabinet is close enough. (Naturally, t's safe to place the plugged-in toaster under a cabinet, and pull it clear of the cabinet when in use.) Bottom Line: It's a nice looking, competitively priced toaster that does a good job at toasting bread and bagels (without using the advanced function buttons) , while the claim of Advanced Toast Technology seems to be overblown. I really like this toaster and recommend it!
