Keenstone Toaster 4 Slice, Stainless Steel Toasters with Timer, Wide Slot, Bagel/Defrost/Cancel Fuction, Removable Crumb Tray, sliver black

Toaster is very large & loaded w/features, works well so far, but feels light-duty My family has been relying on our toaster oven for the last year or so, ever since our toaster gave out. It was a respected brand, but wasn’t a particularly good toaster, anyway — always burning one side of the bread while the other was perfectly toasted. But, the toaster oven is a bit more cumbersome to use and the results aren’t that reliable, so I finally decided it was time to order a new toaster.The first thing I noticed about this toaster is how massive it is…it is almost the same size as the toaster oven! The dimensions are given in the product description, but I didn’t really realize how much space this would occupy on the countertop in my already small kitchen. It is also rather bulky to store… So, if someone is planning to purchase this toaster, and prefers to leave it out, it would be a good idea to measure the area first. It is also surprisingly light in weight considering the size, so I’m wondering if this toaster will be able to withstand everyday wear & tear.The toaster is nice looking; the controls are fairly easy to use: simply select the desired setting using the knob (each side of the toaster is independently controlled) and an LED timer counts down the time, once the lever to lower the toast is depressed. Both sides of the toaster are supposed to be used even if just two slices of toast are being prepared, which seems a bit wasteful to me. There is a cancel button to re-set the bagel or defrost function or just to get the toast to pop up if it is getting a little too toasty. When using the bagel setting, only one side is toasted, so the halves must be inserted in the correct orientation.The sides are a matte, black plastic, but the finish on the front and top is the type of stainless steel that will easily accumulate smudges and fingerprints. Returning to the idea of how light-weight the construction of this toaster is, the control knobs and the lever to lower the toast don’t exactly feel flimsy, but I do think care will need to be taken. The knobs that control the length of time/degree of tastiness make an annoying clicking sound when turned, and they have to be turned a considerable amount to change each setting from 1 (basically not toasted at all) to 6 (pretty much burned). I followed the suggestions of testing the toaster at the longest setting (6) before making toast for the first time. There was no smoking, or odor and everything appeared to be operating correctly. For the first batch of toast, I tried a setting of 2 on one side and 3 on the other, and had to cancel the 3 well before time was up. So, I currently have the toaster set to 2 for what I consider to be medium doneness and most importantly, the bread is evenly toasted on both sides — yay! It looks just like level 4 in the pictures included with the product description.The slots are wide enough to accept bagels and English muffins and this feature also works fine, requiring a little longer setting. I don’t have any frozen pastries on hand so I haven’t yet tried the defrost feature.A plus: the two little pull-out trays (from the back) make this much easier to clean than my old toaster.This toaster seems very reasonably priced, especially with all of the bells and whistles. We don’t really need all of the features included; we just need to make basic toast or English muffins, so I don’t need an LED screen or the select buttons. I suppose kids would find it fun to watch the timer count down the minutes until the toast or poptart or whatever is ejected.I consider this to be just a preliminary review. Of course everything is expected to work well at first, but the real test of this toaster will be over time. Our family will likely use this toaster several times per week, so I think six weeks would be long enough to have a pretty good indication of how well it is likely to hold up. I keep track of my orders on a spread-sheet, so I will know to come back and update this review at that time. Of course, if any problems occur after the six week period, I will also report them. 3 people found this helpful