Toastmaster T2040 Isn't a Master at Toasting

There are certain things I expect from a toaster. I expect the heating elements to turn red when the toaster is in use, providing a visual cue that it's working. I expect the toaster to let me find the right setting and retain that setting from that point on. Most of all, I expect a toaster to actually brown and crisp bread products in some sort of consistent manner. Unfortunately the Toastmaster T2040 fails to meet any of these expectations.

The sad thing is that on the surface it's a very nice four slice toaster. It has a slightly curvy frontpiece giving it a touch of elegance at the cost of being slightly bigger than a more boxy model of the same size. It's white but doesn't have the smudging problem of most white appliances. The slots are extremely wide, wide enough to fit any bagel quite easily. Each set of slices has its own controls including very wide, thick levers that are easy to press and always catch the first time with the slightest of pressure.

Unfortunately, those levers don't go up quite so easily. Once depressed, they lock in place until the toast cycle is over or you move the knob to the cancel position to the far left. This makes it difficult to consistently keep the knob in whatever position you've chosen for your toast cycle. Of course, that's less important than it might be since this toaster isn't consistent from cycle to cycle even when you do manage to use the same settings repeatedly. I've mainly used this toaster with bagels and some of the time the entire surface of the bagel gets toasted while other times the bottom third never browns at all even when I use the same slot.

Regardless of what portion of the bagel gets toasted, it's a surface toast only. The inside of the bagel stays soft and chewy even if the outside of the bagel is burnt. It also results in a more crumbly texture than many other toasters which somewhat overpowers the taste of the bagels and makes it very difficult to spread butter over the bagel. I can't stand the changing textures; my minimal acceptable criterion for toasted bagels is that they toast all the way through and no matter how much I fiddle with the settings on the Toastmaster T2040 that just doesn't happen.

Whatever toasting you get happens very slowly. The first time I used the toaster I placed it in the medium dark range and it popped up without any visible appearance of toasting. I actually thought it might be broken because when I pushed the lever down again the heating elements didn't change color at all. I don't quite understand how that works, but there you have it.

Basically, the Toastmaster T2040 toaster is all flash with no substance. It looks nice but it results in badly toasted bread and bagels; they never toast all the way through, their insides always remain soft and chewy instead of hardening, and their outside surfaces get crumbly. Avoid this toaster unless for some reason that combination sounds appealing.