A Basic Machine For A Basic Price

I can't tell you how many toasters I have gone through over the past 50 years or so, but it's a lot. There was a time when I would look for a high end product and spend a pretty penny, thinking I was getting a great machine that would last for many years. I have since learned that the modern day appliance manufacturers have still not perfected the simple toaster, so my plan is to find a basic machine that will do the job and plan on keeping it for about 2 years. Then it goes in the garbage and I buy another new one.

Before buying the Oster 6329, I had a GE shiny chrome basic machine and it lasted about 3 years. I paid just $19.95 at Costco for the Oster and if it lasts for 2 years I will be very happy. I figure that if I spend $40. to $50. on a high end toaster, there's no guarantee that it will even last for 2 years (it seems that all of our great scientists and engineers are too busy designing cars and space machines to dither with mundane items like toasters to get them right) and I could buy 2-3 cheaper toasters for that price. So my plan is to not invest so much into a toaster until they run like cars and spaceships.

The Oster 6329 has a satin flat stainless finish and it stays quite cool during toasting. The unit is rather sleek and compact and it has a removable crumb tray which works very well. The controls are rather confusing in some areas and the owner's manual does not completely clarify how they all work. For instance, there is a "warm" button and the book states that pressing this button will warm your food. However, the button does not work unless the "toast" button is pressed first. So if you think you are just warming your food, you are actually toasting it at the same time. Very confusing. There is also a bagel button, a frozen button and the normal toast button. They seem to work OK and are not as confusing as the "warm" button.

The toaster boasts extra wide bread slots, but they are not really that much wider than normal slots. I did not have any trouble fitting a sliced bagel or waffle in them and both slots have auto-adjusting stainless steel bread guides which did work very well. There is also a cancel button and a manual toast lift to raise the bread a little higher for easier removal.

There is a shade dial with 7 setting to adjust how light or dark the bread will toast. This seemed to work very well, with noticeable differences in doneness with each setting. I have tried different foods in the toaster, including white bread, rye bread, bagels, waffles, pop-tarts, English muffins, corn muffin tops and swirl bread. Except for the bagels, all of the items did quite well at various settings. In the case of the bagels, they did OK except that the tops did stick out above the slots and had to be turned in order to toast completely. The slots are not especially deep and bread items that are large will not be exposed to the heating elements and will have to be turned in order to completely toast.

The appliance has sort of a retro style look and a small footprint and looks great on any counter. The cord is an adequate length but does not have a cord storage when not in use. The toaster seems to be made quite well and does an adequate job of basic toasting. If it lasts for at least 2 years I will be very happy with my $19.95 investment, and who knows, by that time some Nobel prize winning scientist will have invented a truly remarkable perfect toasting machine that will last a lifetime and I won't have to take out a second mortgage to buy it.