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Comment by willis936 | Hacker News Reader

Toasters are an interesting case study. I went on a tear last year after being fed up with every toaster doing the same bad job. I thought maybe someone made a proper toaster. What I found is that when you pay more the coat of paint gets nicer and maybe there's an MCU+LCD, but the guts and logic are identical. There is no good commercially available toaster today. It's sending a very loud message about how markets operate, and it's not pleasant.

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Highly relevant Technology Connections video on toasters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y

Big part of the problem is the disappearance of brick and mortar stores, along with the constant bait and switch from e-rerailers making product reviews impossible.

That rave review was for an identical toaster with different guts, or with amazon reviews, something else entirely.

Either I'm having insanely good luck or I have extremely low expectations of a toaster, but I genuinely don't understand how a toaster does "bad job".

What were the issues you were having?

Agreed 100%.

We've been using a cheapo £10 tesco or argos one for the past few years. It toasts..

I used Dualit in various places, it does as good or bad a job, can't tell the difference.

I love the Dualit idea, but in the end can't justify the price, not for this particular kitchen item.

I have a ~20 years old Philips toaster cost around (1500 INR)20-30 dollars than. We don't use it every day, but I don't see what can go bad.

Seconded. My Philips toaster is more than 30 years old and in the super cheap bracket.

Every few years I have to shake out the bread remains and that's about all maintenance it gets.

Works like a charm and the outcome is very predictable.

Granted, I only use it for sliced toast bread. But I'm happy with the results.

My biggest issue is with the lever. I have to push it down between 5 and 10 times before it will trigger, without fail. I've had this across most all toasters I've owned.

My second biggest issue is related to the same mechanism: the "pop" is impotent and does nothing to eject what's being toasted. The most I can hope for is that I can manually push the lever up.

The next biggest issue is with heating element distance. If there's anything that is wider than a slice of wonder bread it's going to get sizzled by the heating element. In the worst cases it causes smoke to be emitted for several runs afterwards.

this guy toasts

Modern retail toasters, don’t seem to be able to fit a proper standard English sized, slice of bread - the size of which, I’m not convinced has increased over time - but rather, the toasters have been designed primarily with US sized slices (which I’m under the possibly erroneous impression, are smaller?!), as the target market.

Quite annoying…

Dualit is a quality hand built toaster made in the UK since the 1950s.

Yeah, I know - I actually mentioned it in another comment here.

Even with Dualit, I would still only purchase from a professional catering retailer. Just in case, there’s any differences, and the fact that purchasing from a professional catering retailer, implies a greater level of longevity, if it ever did breakdown - for potential small claims court, reasons, in the future.

Regardless, Dualit also pretty much make every part of their toasters replaceable, for this exact reason. Hence why I think it’s one of the only decent toasters, out there!

I've had good luck with toaster ovens, but even those only last 10 years before they die.

The heating elements should be replaceable!

Dualit 2-slice toaster: £160. It's held together with ordinary screws, contains no transistors, the timer is mechanical, and all spare parts can be ordered. It costs nowhere near $2,000.

I mentioned my Zojirushi toaster oven in another comment .. I use it as a toaster, and for a dozen other things. But it looks like they don't make the bread slice kind of toaster.

They are probably all made with the same guts from one or two manufacturers. Same with microwaves, nearly every model from $100 to $5000 is made by Midea. (Source: Wirecutter)

What can a $5,000 microwave do?

Same thing a $100 microwave does, just really stylishly: https://www.subzero-wolf.com/wolf/microwave-ovens/30-inch-m-...

(Ok, fair, that's only $2,500)

I use a cast iron pan to toast bread :-/

If you want a great toaster, just get this one:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/gp/product/B07PHLN9DD

I think Dualit still make pretty straightforward mechanical ones. Or if not, you can buy an old one that's already been someone else's toaster for life and can now be yours.

The MCU is the problem. They toast by time. This just can't work well. My parents' Sunbeam had a temperature sensor.

My Sunbeam has a temp sensor. This toaster is at least twice my age, and it will likely outlive me. It's such a rare feature that I'm sure your parents and I have the same model (though likely a different year or style, as it varied by decade)

What are you expecting? Toasters are not complicated devices. Are lots of people having toasters randomly fail?

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