The 2 Best Toasters of 2025

This is not a comprehensive list of everything we tested in previous iterations of this guide, just what’s still available.

Two-slot toasters

The GE 2 Slice Stainless Steel Toaster is well made with sturdy buttons and an attractive stainless steel exterior, but it toasted unevenly. The frozen waffles we prepared barely had any color, even when toasted on the highest temperature setting.

The Cuisinart CPT-520 2-Slice Motorized Toaster has some features similar to those of the Breville Bit More toaster we recommend, but it ran too cool and toasted unevenly. We also found its motorized lift-and-lower feature too slow—we prefer the immediacy of a regular manual lever.

The Cuisinart Soho 2-Slice Toaster toasted unevenly and was inconsistent from batch to batch in our back-to-back tests, so we dismissed it.

The West Bend 77224 Toaster 2 Slice, which looks like something straight out of the ’90s, didn’t toast as evenly or consistently as our picks. It’s designed to drop the toast through the bottom of the machine onto a tray when it’s done toasting, which could be helpful if you don’t want to reach over a hot toaster for your toast. But it’s quite large and takes up a lot of counter space.

The Oster 2-Slice Touchscreen Toaster 2144295 toasted inconsistently in our back-to-back tests, and many pieces of bread weren’t toasted around their perimeter. Even on the highest setting, the Oster couldn’t sufficiently toast English muffins, sourdough bread, or frozen waffles.

The Buydeem 2-Slot Toaster toasted unevenly in our back-to-back tests. It couldn’t toast sourdough bread well either—the center of the bread was pale and insufficiently browned.

The Cuisinart CPT-720 2-Slice Digital Toaster has a memory-set feature, which allows you to save your preferred shade settings for up to four types of bread. Unfortunately, this toaster’s shallow slots couldn’t completely fit a bagel, leaving an entire section un-toasted. It also toasted bread unevenly—the top half of the slice would be nicely browned, but it would get more pale toward the bottom of the slice.

The SMEG 2-Slice Toaster produced mostly even results in our back-to-back tests, aside from the two batches that were practically burned. We liked the looks of this toaster, but the lever doesn’t allow you to lift your carbs up out of the slot, which means you have to risk burning your finger (or use bamboo or wooden tongs) to retrieve them.

The stylish Cafe Express Finish Toaster took longer to toast bread on the medium shade setting (about 3 minutes) compared with any model we tested in 2022. It costs more than our upgrade pick, the Breville, and didn’t toast as evenly. It’s also harder to clean because the openings that allow the crumbs to fall into the tray below are so narrow.

We liked the sleek look of the Cuisinart CPT-T20 2-Slice Touchscreen Toaster, which features touchscreen controls that are easy to wipe clean. However, it didn’t toast bread as evenly from edge to edge as the Cuisinart CPT-122 2-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster, and it’s more expensive.

The heating elements on the Breville BTA735BSS the Toast Select Luxe weren’t consistently flush with the interior, and sections of them didn’t fully illuminate. The lift lever didn’t raise toast as high as our picks did, and the toast shade wasn’t as even from edge to edge. The top and sides of this model get very hot when it’s operating, so we wouldn’t recommend it if you have young kids at home.

We liked the digital-countdown feature on the All-Clad TJ822D51 Digital 2-Slice Toaster, but the heating elements weren’t consistently illuminated, and the bottom edges of our bread didn’t get fully toasted. This model isn’t weighted as much as some of the others we tested, so if you apply too much pressure when pressing down the lever, the entire toaster tips forward.

We liked the look of the Zwilling Enfinigy 2-Slot Toaster, but the controls are labeled with symbols rather than words, making this model less intuitive to use out of the box. It also toasted inconsistently from batch to batch.

The Dash DVTS501 Clear View 2-Slice Toaster allows you to toast a long slice of sourdough bread, but its elongated shape is awkward to use and not conducive to every kitchen counter. It also toasted inconsistently from batch to batch and completely failed to toast during one round of our back-to-back tests. Occasionally, it popped toast out of the slots so aggressively that they ended up on the floor.

The Krups KH732D 2-Slice Toaster did poorly in just about all of our tests. Its chrome exterior is wrapped around a cheap, lightweight interior frame that doesn’t sit securely on a countertop. If you push the lever to bring the toast up to the top, the machine tips over.

Four-slot toasters

The Breville BTA840XL Die-Cast 4-Slice Smart Toaster was hands down the best toaster we tested, but we’re not confident it will last long enough to justify its exorbitant price. We’ve read customer reviews that say it fails prematurely, so we’re hesitant to recommend it, especially since it costs $200 (at the time of publication). We preferred this toaster over the four-slice version of the Breville Bit More (the BTA730XL), which has two long slots that did not toast as evenly. The Smart Toaster is more expensive and will take up a considerable chunk of your countertop. But its exterior is built like a tank, and it offers more features than any other two- or four-slot model we considered.

The four-slice, long-slot Breville Bit More BTA730XL was one of the few models we tried that was able to swallow an entire oval slice of rustic sourdough without any of the bread sticking out of the slot. Unfortunately, it overcooked white bread on its middle setting.

The Breville BTA830XL Die-Cast 4-Slice Long Slot Smart Toaster toasted evenly, but it left the bottom of the lower corners of some pieces untoasted. Because it’s expensive, we expected more from this model.

The Cuisinart CPT-180 4-Slice Metal Classic Toaster toasted bread unevenly from batch to batch, leaving some pieces pale golden brown and other pieces burned.

The left lever on the Cuisinart CPT-640 4-Slice Toaster we tested was faulty. It couldn’t keep the bread in the slot without popping it up.

Special thanks to the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS) at The Ohio State University for allowing students to use the electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy to determine the composition of the toaster heating elements.

This article was edited by Marilyn Ong and Marguerite Preston.