The best toasters for every kitchen

The Smart Toast by Sage lives up to its name. It’s chock full of innovative smart features that activate with one-touch controls. Features include “quick look”, which lifts the bread to see how it’s doing, and “a bit more” for extra browning. There are also controls for bagels and frozen bread.

It has a two-slice capacity, but the slots are wide enough to tackle larger slices of artisanal bread, thick bagels, and dense pastries (a four-slot version is available too). You also get variable browning control — just slide the control up and down — with an LED display indicating your progress.

This toaster gently lowers the bread into its trays, so whatever you're toasting — be it bagels, crumpets, sourdough, sliced white, or otherwise — is handled with the utmost care. The only real drawback is the premium price.

This Morphy Richards Vector four-slice toaster is much like the toast it produces: Very tasty indeed. Its features are fairly standard, with all the basics you want and need from a modern toaster. But it has an obvious bonus: Space for four slices at once, which is great for families or larger households.

It has an automatic pop-up function that makes it easy to remove toast without burning your finger, plus variable browning, a removable crumb tray, and illuminated buttons for cancel, reheat, and defrosting functions.

One of our favourite features, which should be standard on all toasters in our humble (or should that be crumble?) opinion, is the variable slot size width. Because it can be deceptively tricky getting the perfect slice to perfectly fit.

Though it looks generic as far as toasters go, the Bosch Styline toaster has unique features that make it stand out from the crumpet-browning crowd.

Our favourite feature is MirrorHeating, which uses four quartz glass rods to generate heat, with reflectors that direct the heat back towards the bread to toast evenly. It also has an integrated warming rack (two metal bars that flip upwards), so you can pop buns on top of the toaster to keep them fresh and warm with a nice blast of heat.

It also has a high-lift function for safely removing toast, plus a removable crumb tray and easy-to access controls on the top of the toaster.

Another bonus is that it’s among the most durable models here due to stainless-steel construction. If your kitchen gets hectic, with lots of hands trying to cram in toast at once, this might be the best option.

The Dualit Long Lite will best suit anyone who likes big slices of artisan sourdough. The slots are 3.6cm wide and 25cm long, allowing you to toast large, chunky slices. It can handle any other type of bread can throw at it — pittas, buns, naans, English muffins, bagels, tea cakes, and more.

It has a peek-and-pop function, allowing you to check progress without interrupting the toasting cycle, plus defrost and cancel buttons, and a bagel toasting function, which toasts one side while just warming the other side. There's browning control too, so you can get your slice exactly to your taste.

We’re stating the obvious here, but this toaster isn't made for compact kitchens with limited space. Make sure you have a counter top that can handle it.

The Breville ‎High Gloss toaster is a hit with Amazon reviewers. Users love the timeless design and helpful cooking features that give you a lot of control. You can view your toast’s progress mid-cycle with a lift-and-look function, and remove smaller slices without burning your fingers thanks to a high-lift feature.

The bread slot widths are adjustable, so you can accommodate different bread sizes — thin or thick — crumpets and bagels, and a variable browning control dial ensures you get the toasting result you want every time. 

It's on the bigger side, but a removable crumb tray and cord storage are nice touches that help you keep your kitchen clean and tidy.

The Philips Eco Conscious 5000 Series toaster is compact, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. For starters, it’s a great choice if you’re eco-minded. It’s made from recycled bio-based plastics to reduce its carbon footprint.

It’s big on features too, with eight browning settings and an effective defrost mode than thaws bread in one go. There’s also an integrated warming rack for buns and pastries — a welcome bonus addition at this price point. And yes, it’s pleasingly affordable, with regular discounts on the already reasonable price.

The downside is it’s not built to service large households, which is true of lots of these toasters. But if you’re looking for a two-slot toaster with a crumb tray and above average functions, it’s hard to find better value.

Features wise, the Tower Cavaletto isn’t the most impressive toaster on the list. But there’s no mistaking its biggest selling point: This toaster looks beautiful. It's a stylish model that would look great in any trendy kitchen.

There is more to this toaster than just looks, fortunately. It offers six browning settings, helping you get toast exactly as you like it — from lightly golden to dark and crunchy — along with defrost and reheat functions.

It not only looks good itself, it also keeps your countertop looking clean and tidy thanks to a removable crumb tray and integrated cord storage. That means no annoying wires clogging up your toasting area.

There’s nothing flashy about the Russell Hobbs 4-Slice Toaster, but that’s OK — not every toaster needs to be packed with smart features and a bakery’s worth of settings. It's a budget toaster that gets the job done. Sometimes, that’s all you need in the morning, or whenever you like to eat your toast.

It has all the basic functions — reheat, frozen, and cancel — plus a high-lift feature for safely removing slices and a removable crumb tray. The slots aren’t adjustable as with more expensive models, but they are extra wide so you shouldn’t have any trouble fitting in a nice thick artisanal slice or half a bagel.

The honeycomb design will look the part in most kitchens. But the most attractive feature, of course, is the excellent value.