Breville PT15 > Reviews > Fun and functional toaster

Author's product rating:   

Performance	Good
Ease of use	Very easy
Durability	Long
User's Manual	Excellent
Value for money	Excellent

Advantages:	The countdown lights !
Disadvantages:	Not particularly fast; occasionally doesn't go on properly .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This toaster is a good buy - it is reliable, widely available and cheap. Of course, you also want it to be good at toasting stuff, and as far as I am concerned, it works just fine.

The previous toaster we had where there were two slots like this, one behind the other, was really annoying, because the side of the bread nearest the centre got really well done, while the far away side would hardly get toasted at all (because, obviously, there were two elements in the centre getting heated up, and only one on the outside, and the insulation in the central bit wasn't effective). However, I am pleased to report that this toaster doesn't do this (or at least, not to any great degree - sometimes the toasting is very slightly uneven, but nothing that you can't live with.)

The gimmick of this toaster is that it has little countdown lights which show you how the toasting is progressing. Sounds a bit unnecessary, I know, but once you have it you won't want to live without it. It's really handy to be able to glance at the lights and see how far along it is, and so be able to do other stuff while it's working without it popping up and getting cold before you get back to it.

The slots are a good size - some toasters like this are quite small, and so you can't get bread which is slightly longer than normal into it. This is not a problem with this one as the slots are a good 15cm long, and it can accommodate quite thick slices as well.

The other features of this toaster are: a pop-up bun rack, a crumb tray, a high-lift feature (for those small items which always seem to get stuck!), a defrost button, a reheat button, a selector for how dark you want (from 1 to 9), a little display screen for that and a cancel button.

The bun tray works fine, but is a little sticky to get up and down sometimes. There are just two metal rods which are stored on either side of the slots, and slope inwards over the top of the toaster when in use. This means that anything very small or with an uneven surface is liable to get knocked over, especially when the toaster pops up. However, I've never had too much problem with this, and it is quite handy to be able to heat things up easily, even if you don't actually want to toast them.

The crumb tray slides in and out fine and is easy to clean and empty. As with all toasters I've used, sometimes crumbs get stuck or fail to fall on the tray. A good shake while holding it upside down over the bin usually does the trick, though!

The three buttons on the top right of the front panel are useful - the defrost button actually does work - you can take bread straight from the freezer, and it comes out fine, and reheating stuff can be helpful. On the other hand, you could just stick it in at a low level and cancel it when you want...

The only niggle I have with this toaster is that very occasionally you have to press the lever down again to make it catch properly, and sometimes it seems to reset itself to level 1 when this happens - if you don't notice this and change it, then you'll have bread, not toast when it's finished! Oh, and don't believe the 'lightning' on the front - it's no faster than any other toaster as far as I can see!

All in all, though, a good little toaster - it looks quite cute and curvy, it'll toast your bread just fine, it will last for years with no problems, and those nifty little lights will have you hooked!