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(More customer reviews)My wife and I have been on a, to date, futile search for a toaster which actually does what it is supposed to do, properly toast bread. We have purchased and tried/tested about 10 different toasters and they have all been, more or less, disappointments as toasters. It seems that toaster manufacturers are more interested in style and fancy electronic functions than in producing a toaster which properly toasts bread to various degrees of doneness evenly. Most toasters require toasting at maximum then, when that cycle completes, immediatley continuing with an additional cycle of somewhat shorter duration because the maximum setting is inadequate to produce dark but unburnt toast in one maximum setting cycle. I ascribe this problem to two causes, underpowered and wide slots which keep the heating elements too far from the sides of the bread.
When we came upon the DeLonghi DTT312, and saw how the slot is variable and that the heating element moves with the variance of the slot width, we thought we'd finally found a toaster which would properly do what it's supposed to do, toast. We were also impressed with the potential ability to heat and toast a variety of breads, bagels, buns, sandwiches, pannini, etc. I was a bit concerned that it is only 800W in Canada (the Kenwood brand in the U.K. is 1075W and its a lot cheaper there, as low as 25 British pounds) but, because the element on one side moves with varying the slot width, I thought that would compensate for the relatively low power/heat. Anticipating that we'd found the Holy Grail of toasters, we bought it. We were like expectant parents, the removal of the toaster from its box was like the birth of a baby with all the hopes for the toaster being successful. I plugged it in, it turned on with a gentle chime, its first sound. I turned the toaster on by pressing the 3 wavy line setting and looked into it. I observed that some of the heating strips didn't glow at all and the strips that did glow glowing had small loops sticking out randomly at various points which glowed very red/hot with parts which didn't glow much. I thought, oh oh, potentially uneven toasting. I cut two identically thick pieces from a whole wheat loaf of bread and gently fed the toaster its first meal with the controls set to their recommended settings. After a short while, another gentle chime emanated from the toaster signalling the toast was ready. I pulled the lever upwards and discovered that the toast was inadequately toasted. I looked in the manual again and decided that the manual was incorrect, it had recommended setting the heat too low, two wavy lines, instead of higher, 3 wavy lines, for non-pre-sliced bread. I toasted two more slices at the higher heat setting which worked but the toast is unevenly toasted, the left slice was starting to burn at its left edge and both were more toasted a bit more in the middle than at their bottoms and tops. I was somewhat disappointed. I hadn't found the Holy Grail of toasters, just a variation on the theme of toasters which don't properly toast. I don't know if it is this particular toaster which has a manufacturing defect in that some of the heating strips don't work and that the quality of all of this model's heating elements/strips is inconsistent which causes parts of them to bulge out and get hotter than the rest of the parts of the strips which continue to lie flat but are not as hot both of which cause uneven toasting. I am taking this toaster back and will try to get the store to plug in another one to see if it has the same problems. If it doesn't, I'll exchange the one I've got for it. If If it does, I'll be requesting a refund and just use my energy wasting but evenly toasting "toaster" oven.
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DeLonghi DTT312 2-Slice Adjustable ToasterDeLonghi's unique 2-slice toaster offers a long, adjustable slot that can accommodate baguettes, Panini, croissants,ciabatas and bagels. It includes a sandwich cage with rubberized handles for authentic Italian Panini and other warm sandwiches. You can manually adjust the width to fit thinner pieces of bread. The manual height lever on its side allows for checking the progress of food without disrupting the toasting cycle. There are two temperature settings; high for standard, crisp toasting and low for delicate warming.
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