Best toaster I've ever owned is a no-name I bought for about $20 at Lowes when they had them in stock for Christmas season. It makes perfect toast, and does a great job on bagles also.
Yeah I bought a cheap ~$10 hamilton beach 2 toast unit i've been using for at least 15 years. It's fine, toasts evenly, works with bagels. What else could you want?
"Expensive and name brand" doesn't mean anything in the toaster world. They all come out of the same Chinese OEM factory with different badges on. Same with most comodity white goods like washing machines, fridges, microwave ovens, etc.
If you want good toasters you need to hunt older models from 30+ years ago.
One that toasts your bread slices evenly every time, without under toasting it or burning it, and without you needing to fiddle with the timer know all the time in order to mitigate those issues.
If your 25$ toaster achieves that it's the lottery winning exception, not the rule. Most toaster are just terrible at toasting evenly even after you fiddle with the knob to find the right Goldielocks setting.
I figure out the right number/setting for the bread I like and it toasts.
What is "even" toasting? Like I genuinely can't tell if my toaster is uneven or whether I should suddenly be unhappy with it. I mean I guess it's not the precise exact shade of tan in every spot, but I've never seen that in my life, even at fancy restaurant breakfasts.
If one part of my toast is a different shade of brown I don't have a problem. I mean, it toasts and it doesn't burn. And I don't think I've won any kind of lottery.
I just feel like I'm missing something here. Cheap modern toasters seem... perfectly fine.
(Mine is a two-slice toaster from Hamilton Beach I bought for $25 which has 11K reviews on Amazon, 4.4 stars [1]. So most of the reviewers seem pretty happy too. It does seem like there are some 1-star reviewers who got duds where the inside and outside toast at different rates, or it doesn't toast half the slice. So maybe there's a quality control issue, but it seems like most people's units, including mine, don't have those problems.)
