Save Your Money

Initially, I was excited to own this toaster (as excited as you can get for a toaster). Yes, it's a little pricey compared to many others but I thought it would last a long time and give me fewer headaches than a cheap model.

Exterior
It's exterior is very nice! The sides are cool to the touch which was a plus. The controls are minimal; my parents would find this easy to use. The toaster has a very solid, quality feel to it. It also helps that this comes in several colors. I had the stainless steel version but it also comes in Red, Black and perhaps Blue. The crumb tray is easy to grab and empty. This unit is a litte large though.

Features
It has a bagel function, a warm function, and a high-lift function for toast removal. The bagel function works good as does the warming function. I wish the high-lift function would lift the toast a little higher, but I prefer lifting the handle to remove instead of an eject button.
There is 1 knob and it's for toasting intensity. Perfect. Simple and uncluttered.

Toast Quality
This unit burned relatively even and the bagel function worked better than most other toasters I've used. The minimal setting toasts very minimally and the max setting toasts a lot. Really nice.

Longevity
And here is where this unit takes a nose dive. I read a few other reviews that this unit quit working on them but paid no attention. You're bound to end up with bad ones. However, at about 8 months, my unit started to act up. The unit would prematurely pop up the toast or whatever it had in it. It only happened a few times but I thought it was ok. However, as the months passed by, it kept on getting worse. Up till the point where I had to press the toast back down every 10 seconds for every piece i put in. I thought that maybe it didn't have enough air ventilation (it wasn't near anything to begin with) but clearing a 2 foot space around it didn't help. At this point, it was 14 months after purchasing it and the warranty was expired.

Overall
My parent's Oster, which they bought for 25$ 3 years ago, was still toasting (even though the bagel button didn't work). I paid 60$ for a toaster that worked for 14 months and started to act up 8 months into ownership. I ended up throwing away my KitchenAid Toaster. It's appears to be a really nice unit but the internal component quality doesn't match the exterior quality.