Morphy Richards Accents 44038 4 Slice Toaster, Cream

This is by far the best (but to be fair the dearest !) toaster we have used. It looks great, fitting in well with our 'retro' themed kitchen, although it would equally blend in well with any style, be it modern or traditional. The toast comes out perfectly toasted all round with none of the usual burnt hot spots that used to occur with our previous toasters. Only time will tell how reliable this is but so far I have been very impressed as i usually have with Morphy Richards products

If, like I was, you have found yourself reading endless reviews of toasters, worried about getting a dud or somethign just as patchy or inconsistent as your old one, then my advice would be just to get this one.

It's understandable that we spend a long time researching these things - there is something about a toaster that makes it much more important than might otherwise be. We rely on it, it needs to be dependable, and it's often one of the first things we use in the morning, setting the tone for the rest of the day. This one I was relieved to find met that need. The toast dial settings have reassuring clicks, and I can vouch that setting the same numbers in each set of 2 slices measn your 2 lots of 2 will popo up at the same time - a sign they are well made and cllibrated. The toast itself is very evenly toasted - somethign that actually takes gettign used to after being so used to light patch here and a dark patch there. (This might even detratct from the charm of the variability, if you are particualry offput by the thought of your toast be 'too perfect'.)

The only slight downside is atually just a trade off. The widths are quite large, even allowing the most alarmingly mishapenly or oversized offcut to be toasted. The result though is that your cheap, every day bread can be a little bit thin, looking lost in the middle of that gaping slot - with the outcome that the bread is quite far from each element, adding a little to the toasting time. So, if you demand your toast ASAP and every second counts then perhpas go elsewhere. But if you want versitiliy, reliability and eveness, you can do much worse than this little reliable machine.

The toaster worked very well for six months and then one day burst into flames and set fire to our kitchen causing £1100's worth of damage. The fault was according to the fire service caused by an electrical fault in the toaster!
Amazon's response was to offer us a replacement of the same model which we declined as we did not feel safe with one in the house and having seen how fast it burnt up I would strongly recommend you do not either