FINALLY!!! A toaster that toasts both sides of bread consistently even ! Toaster is beautifully made, solid, and looks great. Selector dial has lights that blink and indicate how much time is left for the toasting cycle. Easy to operate and keep clean. Well worth the price!!!!!

Toasts evenly and doesn't get hot on the outside. Peek - a - boo lift as well as a timer. Very happy with this purchase.

I really love that this toaster toasts well, and is built well, unlike the two others I returned that were too plastic and lightweight. This is one tall and deep and perfect for thicker bread and bagels. I thought I wanted a white toaster but I actually like this black and stainless steel one …it looks really nice.

No issues with the toaster. It looks very nice. Works as advertised and expected.

The main issue with the modern toaster is achieving even toasting. Believe what you read in the reviews: most toasters struggle to provide even toasting, usually resulting in scorching one side and barely browning the other at regular settings. We recently thought to replace our 22 year-old Cuisinart 2-slice toaster that has worked perfectly and has always produced evenly-browned toast. The Cuisinart has that classic, chrome toaster design (think 1950's) with solid controls but we thought a more modern, brushed stainless toaster would look nicer with our other newer appliances. We first tried out the latest 2-slice Cuisinart toaster (CPT-160). It looks nice but feels cheap with its loose temperature knob and wobbly toast lever. Worse, it can't produce a uniform piece of toast to save its life, unless you prefer to have only one side of your toast done the way you want it.Looking through all the reviews of major brand toasters, uneven toasting is the most common complaint. So, what is it about the modern toaster that makes its primary function so difficult to achieve? The problem with most modern toasters is this: In order to design lighter-weight, lower-cost toasters, the bread slots have been made narrower, placing the heating elements closer to the toast. Perhaps this is an attempt to speed up the toasting process for impatient consumers but it has unpredictable results. Case in point: the distance between heating elements on our 22 year-old Cuisinart CPT-70 toaster is 2.5-inches per slot and it produces perfect toast every time with any kind of bread. The new Cuisinart (similar in low-cost design as most modern toasters) has a reduced 2.1-inch spacing and cannot produce even toasting on both sides of the bread. The whole concept of toasting is for radiant heat (as opposed to direct contact) to brown the surface of the bread. If the radiating elements are too close to the toast, the heating is more intense and the browning process is unpredictable. Compared to classic toasters from decades ago, this "new, improved" reduced spacing is why modern toasters struggle to perform their simple job. The problem is aggravated by breads of different types and moisture content --which is why the "gentler" toasting provided by wider heating element spacing is more successful.So what about the Calphalon toaster? Well, it has wider heating element spacing similar to our old Cuisinart and does produce more evenly-toasted bread than other modern toasters. In addition, the controls on the Calphalon have a good quality feel. The temperature control has a unique design and a countdown timer. However, the Calphalon also has slightly deeper toasting slots than most toasters and this results in the toaster being over 8-inches tall, at least an inch taller than other toasters. Its boxy, rectangular design looks more massive than its dimensions would suggest. The darker grey color only emphasizes its large size. Unfortunately, this massive "box" did not look good in our smaller kitchen. If you have a larger kitchen with plenty of counter space, the Calphalon should look fine and will likely provide you the best toasting performance among competitors.The Calphalon is about $20 more expensive than similar mainstream toasters but it is worth it for good toasting performance and I recommend it highly above competitive toasters. In the end, the Calphalon was too big for our liking so we're sticking with our 22 year-old Cuisinart which is simply better at producing consistent toast than most modern toasters, including even the latest from Cuisinart.