Breville BTA830XL Die-Cast Smart Toaster, 4 Slice, Brushed Stainless Steel | Toast bagels and thick bread in wide, long slots with variable browning control | Includes 'A Bit More' and 'Lift & Look'

This is a great toaster but I never realized that a "long slot" toaster has an inherent problem toasting one slice of bread. The side of the bread in the middle of the toaster is exposed to all the heat from the empty remainder of the slot, so if you want your toast fairly dark across the face it will burn the exposed edge. My solution was to get a chunk of aluminum the thickness and height of a slice of bread to "toast" along with my one slice of bread. Now it even toasts one slice of bread perfectly. I love the LED "bar graph" that indicates the toast time setting and then counts down the time graphically showing you approximately how much time you have (to do other things) until the toast is ready.

With respect to the negative reviews, our Breville Die Cast Four-Slot Smart Toaster has been, by far, the best toaster we’ve ever had. Purchased in November, 2018, it has performed brilliantly and (almost*) flawlessly for over two years (Dec. 12, 2020 now) and has justified the high purchase price. It's not just the reliability (which, it must be said, should be a given for almost any appliance only two years old) of course, but it also really does a great job toasting everything we’ve tried. Bagels are particularly well-handled, with the machine producing them to suit everyone’s individual preferences. But everything from thick breads to (shudder) Pop-Tarts come out perfectly. The Breville is also very consistent. It makes everything today as it did two years ago, as dictated by user preferences. This is no small thing, as it’s easy to waste food and time with under and, especially, over-cooked meals. And it makes trying new kinds of food or new brands relatively painless thanks to the “bit more” feature, which allows you to hone in on your preferred level of crispness, heat or consistency “at the touch of a button” as they say. And speaking of which, probably the best feature of this great toaster is the motorized lower/lift mechanism. It works silently, smoothly, and seems well integrated with the sensors so as allow for much more consistent and thorough results. You press the button and let the Breville do the rest. When it’s done, it lifts your food with a non-intrusive little “peep” notification. *Now for that qualifier. On one occasion, about three months after purchase, the Breville, for lack of a more precise term, froze up. The lift/lower mechanism would not budge. “Uh Oh” I thought “Here we go.” I assumed this was just what our fellow Amazon members had tried to warn about. But for whatever reason, it didn’t turn out that way. I treated the problem as with a frozen computer. I unplugged the toaster, waited in case it has any capacitors etc. that require discharge time (admittedly more important when repairing microwaves than rebooting toasters, but...) and plugged it back in. This was, apparently, all it required, and it happily chirped its return to service. The problem has never re-occurred. This is NOT to assume or imply that this approach would fix the problem for everyone. Clearly, it does not, and Breville, if it hasn’t already, needs to address this head on, both at the manufacturing AND customer service levels. If you pay ~ $200 for a toaster, it should work for you until your ready to pass it down to your grandchildren (okay, that’s probably asking too much). Certainly, you should not be faced with a useless machine for many years, and I sympathize with everyone who has been been confronted by their beautiful toaster turning into a useless brick. For over two years, though, our Breville has been exceptional in every way. When and if that changes, or if it soldiers on for two or more years, I’ll be back for an update.

The Breville Long Slot Smart Toaster does a very nice job of toasting bread, bagels, muffins and frozen breakfast foods! This toaster turned up in my searches repeatedly because I wanted the long slots for more artisan type breads or bread-maker breads that don't fit a single slice slot. Further I wanted a something that stayed relatively cool to the touch after use. I also wanted something that was highly ratings and this toaster was the result. I have had the toaster for a week and I am satisfied with the results so far. The features are pretty nice with the "Add a bit" button that adds about 30 seconds to the toast time. I don't go for gimmicky things and I wondered if the auto up/down would be just that. The lift and look is nice though because the heating coils stay hot while it raises and lowers in a quick fluid motion so you can check how toasted it is without loosing your place in the toasting cycle.. Consider that again, a regular toaster when you lift the bread to check and press back down it starts the cycle over but this unit continues to the end of the selected time on the setting chosen. The unit is heavy and solid. The cool touch is good for one or two toast cycles however continual use will eventually heat the outside cast iron metal. The attached video shows a toast cycle. The numbers seem to be minutes so 3 was 3 minutes. I saw several reviews complaining about the cook time being long?! I am very puzzled by this as it was just fine. My normal use is to prepare an egg to put on a toasted muffin. So I put the muffin in and have the egg going seconds later. The toast time is easily comparable to my last regular 4 slot toaster that we had for 13 years and is easily ready before the egg is done. I did spend the $10 for the 4 year warranty just in case there are problems with the electronics later on because this is a more complicated piece of electronics than a regular manual toaster. This is the highest priced toaster I have ever purchased. As long as I get several years use with the toast function working properly for that time I will be happy.

Purchased the toaster for Christmas 2018. Expensive but truly toasted bread and bagels to perfection and my wife was thrilled. Fast forward to Christmas 2021. The inner element on right side does not heat at all and left side is weak. So we have a mostly useless and expensive toaster that is going on the heap. Maybe it's just me, but I recall a time when a toaster lasted thru my entire childhood and became a parting gift for my first apartment. Still functioning. Those days are gone. An obscenely priced toaster can't make it past 3 Christmases. It was a five star toaster but now I gave it a mercy rating of 2 for its contributions in its short life. Update: Since the 'limited' warranty is expired I decided to disassemble the unit and see what failed. First removed the 'security' screws. Pretty sure they discourage seeing the cheaply made internals. Nothing about this expensive unit with the beautiful case is designed to be repaired. Throwaway junk inside. De riveted the center element and exposed the problem. Both sides had a failed connection to the nichrome wire on a bus bar. So many complaints about center heater and that's the cause. Poor design. I purchased some ribbon and will try to fix this fragile mess as a science experiment but otherwise done with Breville toasters. Junk in a nice suit. Update 5/20 rewound inner heating elements and reassembled as a challenge. Toaster is working but confirmed everything inside is over priced unservicable junk. Way back there was a toaster that could determine the degree of toasting based on a rudimentary sensor. The Breville toaster has a microcontroller and still doesn't have a clue what's going on with your toast. No sensors whatsoever. Just timing like a $15 toaster. Anyway it is back. For now.

I bought this toaster in 2014!! It has been the best toaster. I would have given it 5 stars but the slide button broke a couple years ago. My husband had to fix it to make it work. Still works and really am impressed!!

UPDATE: After 1 year and 5 months, the lifter stopped working. Then a day later, all was well again. Worked for a week, then the lifter would go down but not come up. When I pulled the toast out of the toaster (actually turned it upside down to let the pieces fall into the sink, I noticed each piece were still frozen except for one slice which was burned at the bottom. Upon inspection, only the bottom quarter of one side of the elements were heating and it must have been so hot that the piece nearest the elements burned in the normal time it usually toasts a nice brown. Although I will be getting either a replacement through either Breville (ugh!) or SquareTrade (or a check), if a receive a check from ST, I do believe I will purchase another brand. But, each brand rated as the best four-slice toaster for 2019 still have many negative reviews. Even the Wolf @$399 has far too many one-star reviews. My former toaster was a Viking similar to the Wolf—very expensive and didn’t toast as well as I would have liked. What’s up with toasters today that can’t do what they are made to do? It’s rather unbelievable that there is no toaster made that isn’t perfect. Simply the best toaster for up to 4-slices of toast on the market. Many settings. However, the longer you toast an item, the darker to black the bottom of the bread or roll will become at the bottom of the slice due to the heat concentration at the bottom of the toaster. But when toaster on a setting of 3.5 or less, toasts perfect everything.

Our old toaster was looking pretty rough, so I decided we needed a refresh. After a grunch of research, we landed on the Breville. Note that this is not grandma's old pop-up toaster. All of the controls (except the 'Doneness' slider) are lit electronic buttons, which work very smoothly. When pressing the 'Toast/Cancel' button, the bread is lowered slowly into the toaster. When it's done, the bread is raised up and a beep sounds. The toasting cycle can be canceled at any time by pressing the 'Toast/Cancel' button in the middle of the cycle. You can preview the toast to see if it's done to your liking by pressing the 'Lift and look' button. And, you can tell the toaster to add another 30 seconds to the timer by pressing the 'A Bit More' button. 'Bagel' and 'Frozen' buttons round out the controls. The 'Doneness' slider has a series of LEDs that show the time remaining on the toasting cycle. All in all, a very polished piece of kitchen kit. Somewhat pricey, yes, but from reviews I've read, I fully expect this guy to last at least a decade, if not two.

Almost an electro-industrial work of art, this toaster works better than any other I have used. I had thought of spending even more money on a Dualit four-slice toaster, at around $340. However, having just spent three years in London, I have come across several Dualits and have not been overly impressed. Yes, they look neat in a chrome (and colors, additionally) retro way, but the results and reliability vary widely. When our current toaster expired upon our return to the US, we decided the unpredictability of the Dualit and spotty quality control knocked it out of consideration. In the UK, Breville has a wide offering of products. We have a lot of familiarity with their deep fryers which are truly inexpensive and work flawlessly - as good or better than the French-made Sodir I bought 10 years ago at about 8 times the price. Other Breville products worked without problems. Given this positive experience, we decided to go with this seemingly over-engineered technological extravaganza. We have had it for about four months and it has worked flawlessly. It toasts better than any other machine we have had, and the features all come in handy. Of course, my main concern lies in how long the advanced features will continue to operate properly. However, to date, it has surpassed all expectations and has delighted visitors to the kitchen and the house with its motorized operation and colorful and helpful visual displays. Not cheap (but far less expensive than the problem-plagued Dualit) but more than worth it so far. It cleans up easily, as well, and accommodates all sorts of thicknesses of breads. Well done!

Breville como en todos sus productos son de excelente calidad!

We just bought ours. This is a beautiful toaster and it works exceptionally well. The bread is toasted evenly and well each side no matter where you put the bread in the slot. Time will tell how reliable and durable it will be. But initial impressions are very positive. A strong recommendation if the Breville is in your budget.

Buen producto solo que necesita sacar con mas espacio el pan al terminar de tostarlo, cuesta trabajo sacarlo sin quemarte.

I am a fussy toast person, I like it just so. I had a nice inexpensive toaster for years and then it started to break down, I still fought with it because of the retractable cord feature that I love. Eventually I had to call it quits. The next one (different toaster) only lasted about 4 months. I never thought I would spend $150.00 on a toaster, so I would call this a purchase born from frustration and in haste. Not a normal thing for me, I am a researcher. I have had the toaster for about a month now ( I can not speak for the longevity yet) and so far I love it. I did read a few reviews good and bad, some of the bad ones did make me feel like I was taking a bit of a chance, but I went for it. First of all the feel and weight of the toaster immediately impressed me. It is definalty heavier and more solid feeling than any other toaster I have held. The operation is so smooth and quiet, its actually quite cool. Reading some of the bad reviews and seeing pictures of uneven toasting, including one that showed a un-toasted stripe down the middle of a long piece of bread had me concerned. So when I first used it I was watching inside, it did look like only one side was going to toast, because the elements on one sided did not seem to be on. However I have toasted quite a number of different bread products and it has all been perfect ( I did over-toast my first piece). Some said it was loud, I really don't know what kind of super hearing these people have, Life in general must be unbearable for them. The quietness of it is partly what makes it so cool. I love the "lift and look" feature, I was chronically always interrupting the cycle of my old toasters to check the doneness before. What i did notice as far as a watch for, I wouldn't necessarily call then cons. The outside of the toaster does get fairly warm/hot, not sure if the others did as I never scrutinized my $40.00 toaster. It does definitely have a hotter toasting temp, so start low. Before I first used it, I followed the directions and ran a full time cycle. The radiating heat seemed to hot to keep under the upper cupboards, so I would pull it out. Although unless you are making coals, I am not sure when there would ever be a reason to use that full cycle again. I always store my toaster away when not using it ( hence the love of the retractable cord) So it isn't under the upper cupboards anyway. I now see how a $150.00 toaster is worth it, as long as it holds out for the long haul, I love it!

* update - after a year of occasional use one of the burners has stopped working, and another is noticible dimmer. Not impressed. Have had a bunch of cheep toasters over the years that never dies - one at the cottage is probably 40+ years old and still works. So very not impressed. They don't build things like they used to. Old review: Very nice toaster - I like the clean lines of it, which includes having most of the controls on the top. Works as advertised, and has some nice features. The Automaitic lifting and dropping is a nice touch of class. The take a peak button is nice feature, as is the button to toast it a little more. All in all it's quite nice. That said, i'm only giving it 4/5 stars because in some ways it still uses the same technology as you wallymart toaster. For instance, you do get some hot and cool spots - nothing to worry about and the results are pretty consistent, but you will notice that one side or end might be a little more toasted than the other - same as you'll notice on most toasters. For the money, I'd expect they could improve on this. Second, the slider that selects the level of toasting appears to operate just like any other toaster. You'll find that your first batch is a little less done then the subsequent batches of toaster because the toaster is already heated up for the second batch. An issue? no not really, but for the price I'd expect better tech than your $15 toaster, like perhaps a browning optical sensor, or perhaps a temperature sensor, or a chip with an algorithm in it. I don't know, I'm sure they could come up with something. So 4/5 stars for an aesthetically pleasing toaster with three somewhat novel features (auto lift and drop, take a peak, and a little more)