Just make sure you pay generic money for this generic toaster.

First I have to mention how I got this toaster because I feel like Amazon.com perpetrated something of a scam in this case. I wanted a blender and I picked one out on Amazon. Then there was some special deal that Amazon alerted me to where I could get the blender and a new toaster for only $10 more than the blender. I wasn't especially keen on this toaster, but since the price seemed right, I did it. Well, Amazon sends me the toaster and then about 2 months later they tell me that they actually don't have the blender. Ok, that's annoying. Worse, they were going to refund me my combined purchase price minus the full price of the toaster. Ok, now that's *very* annoying. Just keep that in mind if you're ever tempted to go for a bundle deal.

That is the story of how not to buy a toaster, but now that I have it, what do I think of this lovely toaster made in China, a country not really known for toast, bread, or anything one can put in a toaster?

Toast is not rocket science. Since well before the Neolithic Revolution 12 thousand years ago, people have been making toast and one would assume that today's space-age technology could reliably toast a piece of bread. Alas, the major flaw of this toaster is that it does *not* toast a piece of bread reliably. Just like with any old cheap toaster you buy at a garage sale, to get the right toast out of this device, you pretty much have to stand there and keep an eye on it. As with any ordinary toaster, it's second round of toasting is going to yield vastly different results from the first.

One might assume that with such fancy "Easy-to-Use LED Controls" that the controls would actually control something. No, they're simply easy to use; they don't actually *do* anything as far as I can tell. Oh and just to be clear, if there is an LED in there, it is one LED, not a segmented numerical display, just that effect produced by a little wheel with LED-looking numbers stenciled on it. This would be great if it actually enhanced my toasting experience, but who needs to make toast in total darkness? What's worse is that unless you're looking at the display with your field of vision perpendicular to the toaster, you *actually can't even see what value it's set at*. Before I realized that it didn't matter and this knob did nothing, I used a Sharpie pen to make my own scale around the knob. That's how good those "Easy-to-Use LED Controls" are.

Let's not forget about the 3 buttons that are so subtle that one could easily not notice them, "Bagel", "Defrost", "Reheat", "Cancel". The only one I understand is "Cancel" and since you can just pull the main lever up (like any ordinary toaster), I've never thought to try it. But "Reheat"? Who "reheats" toast? I guess if you do a lot of that, you might check this feature out. I never have.

It's advertised as a "space-saving compact" appliance, yet to me, it looks about the same size as any normal toaster. The sticker that was on the side of the unit says¸ "Sits Sideways or Faces Forward". I hope they don't mean you can lay it on its side because that is a bad idea. You know when a major promotional bullet point is, essentially, "You can put this toaster anywhere on your counter that it will fit!" that you're not dealing with anything special.

It's a plastic toaster from China, folks. Move along.