Sage Smart Toast 4-Slice Toaster, Wide Slots, Brushed Aluminium

If you’re reading this it means that you can afford this toaster, but is it worth all that money?Well that’s probably an individual thing, I don’t think it’s worth the money, but I don’t regret buying it!As a 68 year old I have had a few toasters in my time, none of which impressed me, I just accepted that my toast would be unevenly toasted and carried on with my life.Then in a moment of madness, having looked at many toasters and read hundreds of reviews I decided to take the plunge and invest my life savings into this toaster.It’s a nice looking toaster, not to everyone’s taste, but as toasters go it has the look of a premium gadget, something to show off when visitors arrive.Plug it in and turn it on, set the slider 4 (just how I like my toast) pop a couple of slices of white bread in and push the button.OMG! Nothing prepares you for watching your bread slowly delivered into the inner workings of this magical machine, want to check on your piece of toast, press another button and it slowly emerges for your perusal and then returns into the depths to finish toasting (unless you decide it’s done already!).When it is finished the toast rises like magic, you grab it and take enormous pleasure in buttering a slice of toast that is toasted all over! Yes for the first time in my life I have a toaster that toasts my slice of bread just how I have dreamt it should be, no burnt left hand corner, no soft top corner, my life is complete!So this toaster is very good, possibly the king of all toasters, the question you have to ask yourself is do I really want to spend that much on my slice of toast? Of course you do, buy it now and watch in awe as your toast rises each morning, perfectly toasted, can life get any better!?

This is an easy to use reliable toaster that has some nice extra features including a Quick Look button that momentarily pops the toast up to let you see how it’s doing, a bit more button the lets it brown the toast a little more to get it just as you like it regardless if your using fresh, stale or frozen bread. I particularly like the illuminated bars that count down to show when the toast will pop up. The motorised rise and fall of the toast seemed like a bit of a gimmick at first, but its what enables all these new features and I have grown to love it. Needless to say it has all the bagel, crumpets and hot cross buns single sided toasting functions as well. It produces nice evenly toasted bread that tastes no better than my old (same make) but now defunct 18 year old toaster did but needs a lot less attention to achieve it. If you like toast and a good gadget this is the toaster for you!

Expensive but just watching the bread glide into the toaster and slowly rise with a bleep goes some way to easing the cost. Crumpet option is superb.

Expensive investment but it’s so worth it does everything it says - my cat loves watching the mechanism as the toast slides down !!!

I love the look and how it works but... First one that I bought originally lasted nearly a year and heating element on right hand side stopped working.Customer service was excellent and I was delivered a new toaster and it worked well for about a year again and the same happened. And again- customer service excellent and I'm waiting for my 3rd new Sage toaster.I still love it but I would expect a toaster last longer than a year.We'll see how long it will last time for!

We're big on toast in our house. The toaster is used every day, often several times a day, and has kept us going perfectly for the past 2 years. This purchase was a big decision for us, as it's not a cheap option, but we're so happy we bought it. Possibly one of the best kitchen appliances we've ever bought.I like a number 4 dark brown personally, but my daughters boyfriend likes a 2 slightly crusty warmed bread, this toaster makes it simple for us both to set it and get the toast we like. The slots are quite wide, and take crumpets and hand sliced bread.Easy to set, easy to take a peek to make sure that current bun isn't burning, easy to empty the crumb trays that are situated at the front of the toaster, easy to see how long is left on the time using the display.If you like toast, then I can't recommend this item enough.

Simpy the best toaster ever - love it. Speed is good and control is awesome, bit more or take a peek. Yay perfect!

This toaster replaced a dualit 4 slice toaster that lasted approximately 8 years.One key feature we used the dualit for was the 'bagel' setting - the ability for only one set of elements to heat at once, so you could toast one side only.We looked for this feature in all the toasters we reviewed as prospective purchases, eventually we stumbled upon this sage toaster and were impressed with its features, impressed with the reviews which heralded it as a saviour amongst toasters. It was expensive but we felt that it'd be a good investment if everything was working correctly.The Good:*I’ve removed all the good points of this toaster as part of the 6 month review, the bad massively outweigh any marginal advantages it had.The Bad:It is a sedate, slow beast. The rate it pops up and lowers the toast is often longer than the difference between unburnt and burnt.The above i could live with and get used to, but combined with the issues around the crumpet mode makes this a real problem....About that crumpet mode.The crumpet mode heats one side of elements only, so you can toast just one side of a crumpet, or a bagel and it should toast it just like a normal toast setting, and this is really the problem, it doesnt, it absolutely incinerates whatever is put in on crumpet setting, like crazy fast.Put a brioche burger bun in for a crumpet mode on the lowest time possible and it will blacken and burn it to a cinder. Put a standard slice of bread in - see the picture - and it will carbonise it.Put something in on fruit loaf setting and it does the same but to both sides.It like toasting on turbo, to the point where it is down right dangerous and can't be used without watching it directly for the time it takes - this is where the slow stop really impacts it, you can be looking at a bun, slice whatever, and it starts to brown, in the time it takes for the slow stopping of the toasting, saurons eye is still on that slice and from starting to brown and getting your fingers to the slice - it is cindered. Literally less than 2 seconds difference between not even done to inedible.See the picture, all three slices are from the same loaf, the two on the right side are cooked in toast mode, the left slice is in crumpet mode, both sides are set to the same time, but for whatever reason - crumpet mode is at least 3 times faster to burn things than toast - those two slices on the right went in for another 3 minutes for a light toasting, the left slice was cindered to oblivion in less than 2.Bottom line, would i recommend it? nope. Would i buy it again? nope.UPDATE: having used toasters for 40 odd years and never burning myself on toasters, both adults in the house have managed to burn ourselves on the toaster top in the process of retrieving items from it.Unlike other toasters you can also set the toaster going without anything being in the slice slot, this is basically dangerous and I’m surprised it’s passed regs.I also did a power measurement on the crumpet vs normal mode and the results show it uses the same energy to do 4 sides as when set to 2 sides, meaning the crumpet setting does act as more than twice the power of a normal toast action. The combined effect of 2x power and the absorption rate of the food = burnt stuff.Downgraded to 2 stars. Dangerous and unpredictable.6 month review update!so using it for 6 months now and I’m beginning to question my own sanity, am I expecting too much of a toaster? Can I remember ever having problems like this with other toasters? Do I now have Stockholm syndrome over this toaster and the outrageous price of it?basically, it’s dangerous, it’s slow, it’s not trustworthy and you have to watch it at all times, what 6 months use has shown is that the thing is desperately in efficient in what it does, it’s faster to toast 2 slices individually than it is to do 4, the timers are all based on 2 slices, not 4. The bagel setting is fundamentally flawed in its implementation and the sluggish pop and lower just becomes a massive frustration in using it.the only reason it remains in the kitchen is because it cost so much.downgraded to 1 starUpdate: and now the crumpet setting has failed on it's unique feature and happily toasts both sides instead of the one side only.I'm honestly amazed that this product can deliver so little on its promises.