Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

***Updated review: Several months after I wrote the review below, the toaster ~stopped working entirely~. Someone elsewhere in these reviews said that this Consumer Reports Touted item stopped working after about 8 weeks - That's approximately the point at which it failed to work for me.*** Having bought many inexpensive but defective toasters, I decided to splurge. I was expecting a significant upgrade from an item highly rated by Consumer Reports. Unfortunately, it has exactly the same set of defects as the 'el cheapo' made in China junk I've owned previously: (1) Doesn't toast a thick slice like an English Muffin or moderately thick slice all the way through --- even on the highest '7' setting. (2) Doesn't toast evenly on both sides: a bit burnt on one side while uncooked on the other. (3) Sometimes goes from not really toasted at all to burnt with no intervening setting. (4) Doesn't fully 'lift up' smaller items like a standard Thomas's English Muffin that is found in every supermarket in America, so you have to do the Try To Spear It With A Fork or Knife Trick. (5) The side panels heat up so you need to be careful not to touch them. Not one of these should be a difficult problem to overcome--a toaster is not a complicated piece of machinery. Yet it seems the engineering intelligence used to put a man on the moon has not yet been marshalled to make a good basic toaster. At least I've never found one that meets all five of the above requirements. MORAL (based on this and other purchases): Never rely on Consumer Reports. For all their expensive laboratiories whatever testing the brainiacs over there are doing, whatever rating criteria they are using both seem to be as defective as this toaster.