Breville BTA820XL Die-Cast Smart Toaster, 2 Slice, Brushed Stainless Steel

I had my Cuisinart toaster for nearly 20 years. And then the push lever wouldn't stay down. I tried to fix it, but it was time to go. I initially replaced it with the same thing, but the current quality was a bit lower in some aspects. So, I spent some time figuring out what kind of toaster I wanted in 2024. The person I was 20 years ago has evolved, with a little more money, but the same great taste. I decided on this Breville. It was between this version and the one with the pushdown lever. I decided to spend the extra money for the neat-o automatic up and down feature. Design-wise, this looks stunning in my kitchen, and probably will in your kitchen too. It's easy to use: just pick a toast setting from 1 to 5, then hit toast. Your bread automatically goes down on its own, and a light-up countdown starts to happen to let you know when it'll be ready. Once done, your bread slowly rises back up. If it's not done enough for you, you can hit "a bit more" for a touch longer toasting. This will toast bread because it will fit right in the slots. If you have custom-cut bread, make sure they aren't oddly shaped because once I tried to toast French bread cut on an extreme bias, and it got stuck in the toaster while coming back out. I was afraid I broke it, but I didn't, and I learned my lesson to only put in bread that is sized to come out easily without getting caught in the machine. Overall, it's impressive. In my head, I want this toaster to last forever, but I already see a few flaws that could happen down the line: 1) The LED lights could stop working over time; this isn't that big of a deal for me. And 2) The automatic up and down mechanism could stop working, and there would be no way to toast at that point. I know these things could happen, but hasn't happened yet. I got this anyway because the joy of using this is worth the cost. I will update this review when the toaster eventually gives out, which I hope it won't for 20 years. Recommended. *** 2-YEAR UPDATE *** I use this multiple times a week, and it still looks and works great!

While expensive, this toaster is worth it. In the four days we have used it so far I would note the following: - Very solid construction. - Attractive matt silver finish, finish, looks good on the countertop. - Toasts bread flawlessly, easily adjusts for darker or lighter toasting. We haven’t used it for bagels yet, but the slots are wide enough to accommodate bagels or thick bread. - The motorized function works well. - It does toast a little slower than our last toaster, but this likely improves the finished product. I don’t see this as a negative. I would definitely buy this again. Would make a good gift too.

Saw this toaster at a friend's house. Splurged and got the toaster. WELL made, looks great, VERY Simple to use, easy to understand buttons. Clean, sleek, you or your guests do not have to stare at the toaster to try and figure out how to toast whatever they want to toast. Not a million buttons, dials etc. Just straight forward. Nice wide slots for bagels, Hamburger Buns, home made sourdough etc. Now it's 9/2025 bought this toaster in 2016 almost 10 years old. Looks great still, functions top notch still, spent 200, that's 20$ a year! Lol, my neighbors have been through 5-6 toasters and they toast like crap, burnt, soft, etc. I have gotten this toaster for wedding gifts, they still have them. FYI sides of it stay fairly cool but lots of heat comes out the top. Like hot, so do not put under a cabinet when in use. It can store there, but pull it out from under to use give it a bit to cool down and push it back. WISH they had an option for Black Stainless

It arrived well packaged (a box within a box). As I removed it from the box I could tell it was sturdy and well-made. Using it is a joy! I love the way it clamps the bread and lowers itself when I push the button. I love the way the LED indicators show the progress - no more guessing when it's about to pop up. I love that it has a signal indicating it is finished to alert me when multi-tasking. The bread toasts nice an evenly. Great toaster!

BULLETIN - UPDATE WED MAY 18 - Toaster deader than a hammer. I'd been thinking in recent weeks - after getting my original purchase replaced on warranty - that my Breville was a fine toaster, even with some uneven toasting on dark setting. All the other functions - defrosting frozen bread and toasting it in one cycle - have been a lot of fun. Tonight I put a regular piece of unfrozen bread in, set on med-high and the piece of toast began going up and down and up and down. All the lights across the top began flashing. I unplugged the toaster and tried again, several times. Same result. I paid $159 I recall, for a toaster that lasted less than three months. In total, TWO models of this toaster lasted less than three months. OLD REVIEW: I'm hoping like crazy that I will consider this toaster a 5-star purchase a month, a year and 10 years from now. Like everyone else I am banking on the relatively low percentage of 1-star and 2-star reviews and very high percentage of 5-star and 4-star reviews. So far my observations are this: It's slow, but I think that's part of a high-quality process. I make toast on the darkest setting, using Trader Joe's multi-grain bread, right out of freezer, and without using the extra toasting button I get uniformly dark, perfect, one-slice servings on both sides. I'm scrambling eggs and making coffee so it's not like I've found myself waiting, drumming my fingers on the counter, for the toast to pop up. I love the buttons - on top of unit and easy to read and making a beautiful display. To one other reviewer's point on a Cuisanart toaster that smudges so easily, I found the same to be true, and of course, it didn't toast evenly, so that went back after 24 hours. On the Breville, the non-smudge finish is just spectacular, like the finish on a Rolls Royce. There's the line we Amazon buyers have found to be so true: you have to see this in person to believe how handsome an item it is. It's like the fit and finish on a $60,000 car, just gorgeous, reeking of quality. *Back to function: the opposite of the dark setting on my toaster is the lowest setting, for just lightly searing hamburger buns. I like Pepperidge Farm "slider" buns, which I freeze and then remove from the freezer as needed, long enough at room temperature to be able to separate the halves and still keep as once piece. That one bun piece, opened, fits into the slot and on the settings of 1 FROZEN and 2 lightest toast setting, the results are perfect, just enough toasting to seal the bread from the burger's juice. I also like the "Lift & Look" and "A Bit More" buttons, but have not explored them much. Bottom line: If this toaster holds up it will be one of the most fun purchases I've made for my 2nd favorite room in the house, my kitchen. Update photo: I added fourth photo to show the beautiful, functional louvers on the one side of the unit. The toaster does generate a lot of heat - not so much greater heat than other toasters but heat that's on for a longer period of time. I may put tinfoil on the underside of the cupboard above the toaster.

It's expensive but it beats any other toaster in my life hands down. i was impressed by last Hamilton Beach toaster with cancel and defrost buttons, but frankly compared to this one it was a pile of junk (costing half as much, it's true). The Hamilton Beach only lasted 2.5 years, ceasing to operate after an effort to gently clean out all the crumbs. That one had two extra long slots for four slices, but I decided to get this two slot one because after all, I can toast as many slices as I want anyway. This one has wider slots. I don't often toast artisan loafs that you can slice into really long slices or that feature would have been important. There is just no comparison of the build quality of this one to previous toasters. It dispenses with that noisy, wobbly spring loading lever to insert the toast and pop it up. Instead it has a totally silent, smooth electric elevator for the bread. The toast no longer pops up like a Jack-in-the-Box. It gently glides up. This is a more respectful way to treat your food. It's also got a very nice, professional artistic design. The style is kind of Art Deco, very nice. The toaster is gorgeous with its real beautiful brushed stainless steel and electronic led lit buttons. The outside does not get hot and burn you like previous toasters I have owned. That's a very nice thing. You really don't want to have something big and burning out on the counter while your busy preparing food. Unlike other toasters, where you have to guess the setting for each type of bread and hope you get it right, it has a nifty "peek" button that lifts the toast up briefly for inspection in the middle of the cycle, along with a cancel button if you find the toast is done. There's a handy "little bit more" button if the toast is not quite dark enough. It also has an LED display that tells the progress of the toasting, another great feature for timing food preparation. Most toasters you have no idea when it will finish. The metal grids that hold the toast in place are much better designed- they are also motor driven and grip the toast firmly. They are not part of some rube goldberg mechanism that is powered by pressing the lever. It's a precision machine. Of course the most important thing about a toaster is the toast. I've never made such evenly browned toast. It's a delight. Not perfectly even like a tan, but no parts are burnt or untoasted. It's a nice even toast. I am so used to toast that comes out with some burnt parts in order to get all of it toasted, that I am astounded by what this machine produces. It's of restaurant quality. Almost. It's not perfectly uniform, there are lighter areas, but it's close. It's got a nice variagation. The defrost button works better than on the Hamilton Beach, which I was not able to use. I no longer have to defrost the bread first. The toast is chewy inside but firmly browned on the surface. I don't know how they do it since the basic toasting method is the exact same bands of heating wires. They don't look any better or more uniformly placed than other toasters. On previous toasters the toast often came out dry or crispy if it was dark enough; not this one. It may be that they worked out the heat production of the elements and the distance from the bread very carefully to produce an even browning without burning. I've only been using it one day but it doesn't look like you can burn the toast even if you set it all the way up- the degree-of-browning setting has a limited range, and changes slowly, so it's hard to get it wrong. That could be a problem if you want to have super dark toast or you have bread that for some reason needs a lot of heat to brown, but it's a blessing for me. So it's pretty expensive for a toaster but you sure see all the money sitting there. It's seems like a fair deal. It doesn't have the look of typical American products that often lack sophisticated design. Breville is an Australian company but the toaster has a German design feeling to it. Nothing about it says wallaby or watch out for the sharks. Toasters are not your most attractive appliance. Compared to mixers, blenders or coffee makers they are homely, bloated and covered with large irregular orifices and levers. So it's amazing that you can imagine these Brevilles getting shortlisted for a toaster exhibit at the Modern Museum of Art, (OK the Italian Smegs are very pretty for a toaster and have a higher rating but do they give your bread an elevator ride? No. Their beauty is surface deep.) One downside to the toaster is that I am eating a more toast, because it tastes so good.

Nice piece. Expensive but works great

What a toaster! Perfectly toasted breads EVERYTIME! Bought this in Aug 2010. ***************************************************** Jan 2011 update This toaster works electronically unlike our previous toaster from ~16 years ago that we bought in grad. school. How it works: You place the bread in the slots and then press a button that says toast. This triggers an electronic signal and the toaster then lowers the bread into the toaster. There is no mechanical lever that you need to press to get the bread down. This causes a time lag of ~15seconds or so, but it is not significant and I feel is really a non-issue in the whole toasting process. You set the level to toast at and when the level is reached it will bring the bread back to the surface. There is another button that is labeled 'a bit more'. Press that and the bread gets taken down for an additional minute (or thereabouts). When the toast is brought to the surface there is a beep that lets you know the toast is done. Very discreet and helpful - if you are messing around with something else it reminds you that the toast is done. The slots are wide enough for bagels and there are settings for "frozen" and "bagel". Helpful as we buy our bagels in bulk from Costco and freeze them. The bagels get done perfectly, unlike our old toaster where portions would be burnt. Having the "frozen" button is especially helpful b/c it adds a little bit more heat compensating for the cold bagel. Works well with frozen bread as well - just hit the frozen button without pressing the bagel button- and then press the toast button. The toaster has excellent insulation - and the outside does not get excessively hot. We tend to pull the toaster out from under the cabinets while using it but every once in a while we leave it under and again the heat is pretty well contained - not damaging the overhead cabinets. We have wooden counters and they have not been damaged in the least. If you want to stop the entire process the "toast" button serves as the cancel button as well and will bring the bread back up to the surface. Over the last six months on two occasions all the buttons looked like they had been pressed (the buttons have LEDs to indicate that the setting is active) and the toaster was unresponsive. I unplugged the toaster and plugged it back in and everything reset itself. We use this toaster at least twice a day and despite this glitch I gave it 5 stars because it was very easy to resolve the problem and I may have pressed buttons accidentally in both cases triggering the glitch. I was looking at a high end dualit toaster (made in the u.k.- at one point) but I think their toasters are getting progressively worse (and use WWII technology). The breville toaster- made in china- has a very nice brushed steel finish and is in keeping with other Breville appliances - well designed and well executed. Given where the buttons sit you CANNOT USE A TOASTER COVER- non-issue for us but something to be aware of. The size is bigger than our last $16 toaster but not too unwieldy. Counter space is at a premium in our kitchen else I might have bought the 4 slice version. Cleaning is a breeze with a nicely designed crumbs tray that pulls out from the front (at the bottom) and can be wiped off. I feel all the other toasters I looked into simply did not compare - in form or function and were using technology of a bygone age.

Parfait! Cuisson uniforme. Le mode pour les bagels fonctionne correctement en chauffant d'un seul côté la partie tranchée. Signal sonore de la fin de cuisson et on peut régler le volume ou l'éteindre. Les côtés du grille-pain en aluminium deviennent chauds au toucher mais ne sont pas brûlants. On laisse ce grille-pain sur le comptoir car il est beau. C'est un modèle qui date de 2015. J'ai vu des critiques de ce grille-pain faites après plusieurs années d'utilisation sans problème. Mes grands-parents avaient un vieux grille-pain Sunbeam T-48 automatique datant des années 1950 qui nous impressionnait en abaissant et remontant les tranches de pain automatiquement sans bruit. Le Breville BTA820XL est un digne successeur de ce grille-pain légendaire! Reste juste à savoir si le mien va durer aussi longtemps... Mise à jour 2025-07-29: Après quelques jours d'utilisation, j'ai remarqué qu'un des guides situé du côté gauche pour centrer la tranche de pain fonctionne mal et reste coincé de plus en plus souvent. Parfois, le guide ne se tasse pas vers le centre quand on met une tranche de pain, parfois c'est le contraire. Ceux du côté droit fonctionnent pourtant très bien. J'ai demandé un remplacement.

I was hesitant to purchase this item because of the price. Let's face it, when it all comes down to it, does it toast my bread? The quick answer is yes. I purchase whole wheat toast bread fresh from my local bakery. Frankly, it's the best. The toasting is even although if you had to be picky, the top section does burn a little hotter. Work perfectly for bagels and english muffins. The up and down mechanism is smooth and quiet. What a treat! My previous toaster shot out my bread onto the floor! You'll have to fuss with the levels until you get it to where you like it. The toaster is gorgeous and solid. Very easy to operate. My conclusion, it's well worth it! The bonus — my wife loves it too! If money is no object, then I would highly recommend this toaster.

I am exceptionally pleased with this purchase. In 65 years of being the one to make these choices and provide occasional cleaning and repair, I can say after two weeks of use, this toaster is in the elite class as a consumer product. Every feature is well thought out and useful; toasting is generally even. The brushed aluminum was a surprise, but is really appreciated as the polished stainless always needed wiping. Historically I have purchased (always a 2 slice); first a fully automatic chrome Sunbeam 35 yrs+, second a stainless (real) Kitchen-Aid, 29+ years, third an entry level Hamilton-Beach purchased for occasional use (1/4 of the cost of the Breville) and used full time after the Kitchen-Aid died. But it was very poorly made as the bread support brackets were thin metal and easily distorted, so after three repairs, retired to emergency use. Designed in Australia and manufactured in China under strict quality control was acceptable for 2025. Highly recommended!

Three months after purchasing this $150 Breville two-slice toaster, it no longer toasts evenly. For the past three weeks, one side of each slice comes out nicely browned, while the other side is barely warm and completely untoasted. I contacted Breville support and spent two full days dealing with a polite but ultimately unhelpful customer service representative based in South Africa. I was required to join a Zoom call and demonstrate the problem on video. Even after showing that one side of the bread does not toast—even on the highest setting—I was told this is “how Breville toasters work.” Their suggested solutions were: Turn the heat up higher and burn the toasted side, or Flip the bread halfway through That defeats the entire purpose of owning a toaster. Most frustrating of all, when this toaster was new, it toasted both sides evenly. Something has clearly failed. Breville’s refusal to acknowledge a defect and their insistence that uneven toasting is “normal” is unacceptable at this price point. For $150, I expected a premium appliance and meaningful support. I got neither. I would not buy Breville again.

I must have toaster, hoping it will last, A++++