Ever paid over $200 for a toaster? Seems a bit extravagant doesn’t it? I mean wouldn’t you rather spend the money on say a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, a microwave or even a 10pc cookware set than spend that much on an appliance that just makes toast? It would have to be one damn good toaster to make it worth that sort of money.

With this in mind we set about to review the Dualit 2 Slice Toaster to see whether it was actually worth the hefty $200+ price tag.

We have to admit that this is a really good looking toaster. It has all the look of a commercial appliance and in the canary yellow it is just gorgeous. This style is being copied more and more by other toaster manufacturers.

The Dualit 2 Slice Toaster is actually hand assembled in England which can be good or bad, depending on how you see it. Good, if you have staff that love making a quality product and have an attention to detail but bad if you don’t.

What this means to me is that if someone on the assembly line is having a bad day, they could miss putting the element in correctly or forget to put in that screw that keeps the whole thing together. Still, Dualit toasters have a reputation for being built to last so you would think that quality control procedures have been put in place to prevent this from happening.

The toaster is promoted as having even heating and yet we have found numerous reviews that say otherwise. BUT on the other hand we did find other reviewers who said that it DOES heat evenly. So what does this say? To me, it is as if some of the toasters coming out of the factory are working to specifications whilst others aren’t. Is it just a matter of being lucky enough to get a good one in the batch?

This Dualit toaster is quite unique as toasters go with it’s manual functions. I must admit I like to have my toast pop-up automatically when it is ready. This toaster does not do that. When it is ready the toaster will switch off but you need to press the lever for the toast to pop-up. The reasoning for this is that the toaster keeps the toast warm until ready to use. Very nice feature but not something I would personally use as once the toast is cooked in my house, there is no time for it to wait around keeping warm.

The toaster is also promoted as having extra wide slots but we found too many reviewers for this item claiming otherwise. Many couldn’t fit much more than bread in their toaster and those who wanted to toast a bagel had to press them flat before toasting.

Another little quirk with this toaster is that you have to reset the settings every time you toast – did we mention that this was a manual toaster? This could get annoying quite quickly. I just want to pop in my toast and let the toaster do the rest.

One other issue that a number of reviewers noted was that it took a while for the toaster to heat up. This meant that the first batch of toast would take longer to cook. Or to put it in another way, the first batch would be cooked whilst the second batch could be burnt as the toaster had heated even more so by the second batch. This may work well in a commercial setting like a cafe or hotel where toast is being continually cooked and the temperature remains static after the initial start but for limited home use, it may cause a problem.

I do like the 1 slice/2 slice option. This allows you to just toast one slice of bread so you don’t need to heat up the whole toaster.

Overall, this toaster has some nice features but as one reviewer on Amazon put it, “When one pays over $200 for a toaster of bread, even one disappointment is one too many”.

Want to Read More Reviews?

You can read more reviews for the Dualit 2 Slice Toaster at Amazon

WHERE CAN I GET THE BEST PRICE?

We found the best price at Amazon