Argos Value Range Sandwich Toaster

When bought, this was just £5 no one in my family even ate toasties often but when my sister moved out she bought one and me and my other sister started getting massive cravings for these at home so we went out and bought one of these, my dad didn't mind he said as long as we clean it and put it away because it looks cheap then it was fine to have.

Making no mistake, this is a cheap toastie maker were there is nothing special about it, it doesn't have any features except the clip to hold it together and the temperature lights this means you don't have to do anything you just make your desired toastie pop it in and just let the machine do all the work. It does look very cheap but it does the job as good as the higher priced toastie makers too. It's plastic construction is very simple, it is just a casing around hot plates, the hot plates are divided into two, this is so you can cook two toasties at once ( very helpful for me and my sister I must say! ) The plates have cutting lines which mark the bread when it comes out so you can cut it into two halves. This has a small rectangle plastic clasp on the lid,when putting your toastie in you push down and clip this down and it will keep the toastie maker firmly together to get the best outcome for your food.

For anyone who doesn't know how to make a toastie, you just make a sandwich or whatever you want in side your toastie, put this on until it's hot then put your sandwich in and close until it looks like compressed toast. There are two lights on the top of the lid, red and green These are for temperature and to let you know when to put in and take out your toastie, the Red will light up when you turn on the toastie, this is it heating up when it turns Green it is ready to pop your bread inside and will flick back red after the amount of time it takes to cook your toastie. This being the only feature on the sandwich toaster is really helpful, I'm not certain of the temperatures but it has been programmed that that is the best temperature and amount of time for your toastie to come out and be yummy, personally I always keep mine in longer than I should if I have cheese, because I like it slightly burned.

The size of the hot plates is just standard sized bread, sometimes I find myself putting off parts of the bread so I don't get a massive overhand out side of the toastie maker, this is a little annoying as we buy bigger bread most the time and it means I have to waste that little bit I cut off. You can literally put anything you want in this, I prefer cheese, onion and ham or some kind of meat and I know my sister likes a bean toastie so I don't put mine in with hers because as you can imagine before the lid goes down to seal the filling inside, this will go everywhere if it is a runny filling so do be aware of that before putting a cheese toastie in with a runny bean one, the outcome is not good. The plates are non stick so even if you have had a spillage you can easily lift this up and not tear your toastie apart and make more mess, it will just lift straight up. The cooking time is quite quick if you keep it in for the set time altogether from switching the machine on, it will take no longer than 5 minutes to have your toastie, this heats up really quickly and cools down quick too, you can be looking at about 2-3 minutes actual cooking time. This is plenty of time to sort out a drink or something else whilst it's cooking.

I find, that depending how much you have in your toastie, the lid can be hard to close and pull down enough to dot he clasp up, I find myself putting loads of effort into doing that more than making the actual toastie. I leave the lid up and open while I'm eating my toastie so when I've finished it should of cooled down completely so that I can give it a wipe over, I do this even if no spillage has been made, I use a damp cloth to just run over this quickly and that works fine, when closing this it is thin enough to store upright in a cupboard so this is handy if you don't have a lot of room.

Overall this is a cheap little sandwich maker, it cooks quickly and to me that is all that matters, I don't think that using a more expensive machine would make it taste any different so this doesn't matter to me, I don't use all these fancy features anyway, I just want to put my food in, have it cooked and eat it, and this sandwich toastie maker is exactly that. It doesn't look the best, but 3 years on and it still works perfectly fine expect the other week I pulled the clip off, but that was my fault and nothing to do with the machine, so now we struggle and kind of just hold the lid down because we're to tight to go and buy another one!