I'll go into my experience with the toaster in a second, but first let me explain why we got this toaster. For the past 5-7 years we've had a Kitchen Aid motorized toaster (no levers on the machine, you just pushed what range of toast you wanted and the machine took the toast in and lowered it down - I think I bought it on QVC for something in the price range of $80-100). It was a substantial toaster (weight-wise) with digital buttons to put the toast down, had wide slots like we like (4-slice toaster) and did also make a beeping sound when the toast came up (but nothing as loud as the beeping on this machine). The toaster had a good variety of toasting variations, my husband and I always found Level 3 to be the perfect range of toasting for our tastes. We loved that toaster but it bit the dust a few weeks ago. As soon as it went buh-bye, I jumped onto QVC and Amazon to find something similar (which I cannot seem to find, ugh!). After some research, I decided trying a toaster oven... which was soon returned a couple of weeks later (just too big on my counter top) - but one thing I noticed about the toaster oven is that if you cooked on a 3 or higher, your items came out burnt. I'm not sure if all toaster ovens are like that, but clearly we learned to toast everything on a 2. Like I said, we wound up returning it because of the size. Back to Amazon I went, really looking over and over at toasters. I finally debated between getting this toaster and the Cuisinart CPT-440. I usually only buy a few certain name brands for my kitchen items and appliances Cuisinart is one of those brands and I'm usually very pleased with them. Because I'd recently spent a lot of money out of pocket for a family situation, I thought I would get this lower-priced toaster. The toaster just got to my house yesterday and I was pleased this morning to have an English muffin for breakfast. One thing we noticed when we removed the toaster from the box was how extremely light it is. I looked at my husband and said "Well, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing". I put the toaster down onto the kitchen counter and it just seemed to me that with the materials used and the light weight of the toaster that there just wasn't much to it. Again, that could be a good thing, or a bad thing... and maybe our last toaster was much heavier because it had a motor in it (?) We put our English muffins in on 2, not sure how light/dark this toaster would toast. I would agree with another reviewer that when I toast my items, I really want them toasted; I don't care for a "barely there" kind of toast. At a 2, I will tell you the top of the English muffin (faced to the inside of the toaster) came out lightly toasted and the outside of the muffin seemed soft, almost not to be toasted at all. That's not my personal preference for toasted items, but it could be for others, surely. Mental note that going forward I'd probably toast at a 3, if I was going to keep this toaster. Another thing we noticed was how LOUD the beeps were when the toasted items are ready. Holy cow, that's no joke. Luckily all 3 of us were awake in the house, haha, otherwise you could wake people up with that. Again, it's just a little "something" we noticed. Lastly, (and this is the thing that irks me the most) we noticed that when the muffins were done, they were not raised high enough that we could grab them quickly and smear whatever we wanted all over them. Yes, the description above does specifically state that the levers have a function which lets you manually raise it higher for items if they don't clear the top of the toaster. And yes, I did read that before I bought the toaster, and I do remember specifically thinking "well that seems silly, why doesn't it just automatically raise itself higher so you don't have to use that lever at all" (which is what I was used to with my Kitchen Aid - and I think I just assumed that all toasters were like that). Shame on me, should've listened to that inner pickiness in me, I guess ;-) My husband was holding our son on his one hip, so one hand was tied up - therefore he couldn't get the muffin out because he'd need one hand to raise the lever up higher and then use the other hand to pull the muffin out. I was standing right there and removed the muffin for him. Okay, okay, some of you might be rolling your eyes at me, but I'll tell you that with a little one at home, being able to do things one-handed sometimes can make a huge difference between a little task and a larger task :-) All in all, the toaster does indeed toast, that's why I gave it 3 stars. On the other hand, I didn't find anything about the toaster to be fantastic; quite the contrary, I found these little things to be kind of a pain, so that's why I ONLY gave it 3 stars. Maybe if it was just the loud beeps, or just the barely there feel of the toaster, I wouldn't be sending it back. But all of these little things together didn't lead me to believe this was the toaster for our fast-paced family. Back to the drawing board I go -- this time I'll be sure to get another motorized toaster (which means more $), either Kitchen Aid or Cuisinart (I think I only see Cuisinart motorized toasters on Amazon). Cuisinart is a great brand, solid in most things, and this toaster by no means sways me from purchasing the brand again. I'm just going to make sure that this time around I hone in more on that motorized feature, even if it costs me more. Let's hope that like the Kitchen Aid toaster we had before, the difference in price will guarantee a rock star of a toaster!
