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Russell Hobbs 18541
by blissman70 During my adult life I have had the misfortune of having to buy more than one of certain kitchen items due to the way that they always seem to break on me a day or so after the free warranty has just expired. The main kitchen items that I am always having to replace are kettle and toasters, and it is the latter of those types of ... items that I am going to tell you about today, a toaster that I owned a while back but, as per usual, I no longer use due to the fact that the warranty expired and the little microchip that is hidden somewhere inside the toaster sent the order for the little machine to go into 'end of warranty' self destruct mode, which it did. The toaster that I am talking about is from a well known, and very reputable company called Russell Hobbs, whose kitchen appliances I have had the honour, and sometimes pleasure, with the actual full name of the toaster being the Russell Hobbs 18541 Breakfast Collection Toaster. * So what does this toaster look like...? It's made of solid silver casing with a 22 carat gold trim and an array of brilliant cut brown diamonds embedded throughout. NO, it's not really but I got your attention, (although I bet there is a toaster like that out there that the like of Posh spice has in her kitchen... only she still thinks it's new style worktop mirror and is afraid to go near in case she falls into the slots in the top and is never seen again). Seriously though, this toaster is a little less spectacular than that. It has a lovely white plastic casing that is nice and curvy on all corners. On the top there are two slots that are wide enough for your normal slices of bread, even accommodating thicker things such as buns, crumpets and other toastable things too. On the front, to the lower right as you look at it, there is the simple to use and even simpler to understand, control panel. Then, on the right side, as we're still looking at it from the front, we have the slider that gets the bread down into the element section of this toaster. * What about this control panel then..? As I said, they are easy to use as there are no unnecessary dials and button to confuse anyone, (and I, for one, can get confused quite easily these days), There is the dial which gives you the choice of how brown you want you bread, being from 1, which is barely touched and is really still bread that is slightly warm, to 7 which is going to burn most bread and make it as black as a bailiffs heart. Each number setting is really a timer which keep the slider down until the time is reached, then it pops out of the toaster and onto your plate... although you do have to take it out of the toaster and put it on your plate. The other controls, which are to the right of the dial, are, from the top, the cancel button, which pops out the toast when you want it too. Then there's the warm up button, which simply reheats up the bread-slash-toast if you forget it it there on the plate and it goes cold. Then there's the defrost button which, as the name suggests, defrost frozen bread and slowly makes it onto the perfect slice of toast. Each of these buttons has a little light at the side of them to let you know which button has been pressed and is in use. And that's the controls, which, as I said, are simple to understand and so easy to use. * What about using this toaster...? This is like any other toaster when it comes to making toast. You simply put in a couple of pieces of bread into the slots on the top then slide the arm on the side right down until it locks into position. It will only lock into position when there is electricity so make sure that you have plugged it into the mains. Anyway, once the slider has locked into position you then wait for the toast to brown, which may take a minute or more, depending on what setting you have chosen to turn the dial too. * And the cleaning of this toaster..? It is easy to do so, although I don't recommend trying to clean it in a dishwasher or a bowl of soapy water. All you have to do to get clean it is to empty the crumb tray, then, if you want to, turn the toaster over so that the crumbs that are lodge in the slots themselves can drop into a bin, maybe give it a little shake as well, (the toaster not the bin). Then, once you're happy with the clearing of the crumbs, you can then simply wipe over the outside casing with a moist cloth, being careful not to get any excess water near the elements. And that's it' that's how easy it is to keep clean. And if you make sure the crumb tray stays as clear of crumbs as possible then there's less chance of the smoke alarms going off in your house. * Is there anything else that's worth mentioning about this toaster..? Let me see. Yes, there are a couple of things to mention, such as this does have what is called in the toasting world, an 'extra lift' function which, as the name states, give you the chance to give a little extra lift to your freshly toasted hot cross bun, or similar smaller toasted And there's the fact that it comes with a bun warmer... (yes, bun with an 'n' not an 'm', so don't be thinking that it could come in handy for keeping your rear end warm). This buN warmer is basically a little 'rack' device that rests on the top to the toaster, above the slots, so that you can rest buns on the rack in order to keep them warm. This can be done with either empty slots or even whilst you toast some more bread. Either way the rack is sat high enough so that when the toast pops up it doesn't whack into the bottom of the rack, sending buns and bread all over the place. * So what do I think about this toaster then..? Well, it's a toaster that toasts bread and, at first, it did a great job in doing exactly what it was supposed to do, doing it to perfection for quite some time. Sadly though, after a while, and no surprise to me at all, it began to fail me which left me unhappy with the toasting results at the end of the day. As I said, when it worked it worked well. Even though it only has two slots, which makes it not so handy if you have a large family that loves eating toast, (and when I say large I don't mean big and fat, like Pavarotti or Venessa, I mean more a family with a few member in it. To be honest you would think that only being able to toast two slices at once can be time consuming, but with its 850watt of power heating the elements it doesn't take long to get the sides of the bread as brown as you want them. As for the depth of the toast slots. Well, these aren't the deepest by a long shot and it does struggle to completely toast certain types of bread, (Warburton's is one of those larger sliced bread that are a wee bit too tall for this toaster), so it is a chose of either having the top coupe of inch or so of toast un-toasted or flipping the semi toasted toast over so that it slightly toasts the ends whilst heavily toasting the central section. Me, personally, I often opted for the first and even slice off the top of the slice of bread before putting it into the toasting slots. That way I got a perfect piece of browned toast without any white tops to spoil my toast eating experience. The single crumb tray can hold a good amount of bread crumbs but it does need emptying every other toasting experience or you will end up with a lot of crumbs on the floor and worktops when you're moving the toaster. Then, after a while, in fact, well passed the usually warranty had expired, the toaster began to do what all my toasters do at the end of the day. The elements decided to live in a world of there own, some sections working when they chose to whilst others sitting on their behinds doing absolutely nothing at all, (a little like chavs on the local council estate...). This is when I chose to throw the toaster into the recycling world at the local refuge centre, previously known as the local tip as there's nothing worse than having a piece of toast that is only browned in a few places. * So how much did this toaster cost then..? I think it cost me about £15.00 to £20.00 and, after a bit of a search online, the price is still about the same. * Is it worth the money..? I would have to say yes, it was worth the money as it made lots and lots of toast for my family and myself, with each piece being just as brown as I wanted it. Sadly though, as per usual with me and toasters, once the elements began to fail it just didn't make toast as I liked it, which resulted in me having a tantrum when I either ended up with toast as black as a lump of coal or as white as a snow flake, sometimes even half and half or even worse, patchy shades of white, brown and black... but never as I wanted it, although it did prove that my smoke alarm was still working. At the end of the day I think I got my monies worth out of this toaster before it went to the big electrical resting place in sky... commonly known as the tip. ©Blissman 2013 Read the complete review |
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Proline ST02
by 12jane I was given this toaster by my mum when I came back for my second term at university. I missed not having a toaster in the first term as I do not have an oven, so cannot make toast. Toast is a great way to use up bread that is starting to go stale. Design: The toaster is stainless steel with black plastic trimmings and looks ... great in any kitchen. The toaster is quite light and is easy to move due to these materials. It is a 2 slice toaster and it fits thick slices of bread in easily. However large slices or irregularly shaped bread does not fit in one go and must be half toasted, turned over and the other half toasted. There are 7 settings for the toasting time, of which I always use option 3. It seems to take a while but my toast comes out prefect. I prefer it just brown, so for people who would like a more well done slice of toast, the higher numbers would be better. There is also an option for Bagels, as well as Defrost and reheat settings. I have yet to use the reheat or bagel settings. The Defrost is great for bread which has been frozen and I am too hungry to wait for it to defrost properly before eating! There is also an option to Cancel, which is great when I retoast a slice of bread that wasn't quite done the first time. When doing this you must remember to press cancel though or you get a lovely smell and rock solid black toast!! My flatmates were not keen on the burnt toast smell coming from my room the other week! When toasting small slices ( I often get cheap loaves of bread which are oval shaped, and near the end of the loaf the slices are quite small), the toaster will often throw them across the worktop when they pop up! This can be funny but is not good if the area around the toaster is not clean! The first time it happened my toaster was near the edge of the work top and one slice of bread bounced out and landed on the floor! Toast can be eaten alone, with jam or cheese etc. and is a lovely accompaniment to any meal, which is great on a student budget. I now have toast for breakfast and with my dinner very often, having things like scrambled or poached eggs on toast. I often buy reduced bread from the supermarket which, while lovely as toast, makes horrible sandwiches so it is great to have a toaster at last! Cost: As it was a gift I'm unsure on how much this toaster cost, but research online show it was under £10 which is great value for what is a lovely little toaster. I would definitely recommend this toaster as everything about it is great, apart from its toast throwing powers! I will still award it a 5* toaster, as this only happens with small slices. Nothing that a more expensive toaster would do better! This toaster does not make much sound, but the noise when the toast pops up is perfect for me to notice when it is done and eat it before it goes cold! Read the complete review |
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Russell Hobbs 18098
by scooch12 I don't really use the toaster that often, we sometimes have toast for breakfast and the odd round of bread toasted to put with boiled eggs but that's really about it. The last toaster we owned stopped working completely after less than 12 months, so I really didn't want to spend much on a replacement incase the same happened again. Plus ... the fact that most of the time it just sits in the kitchen doing absolutely nothing. I visited the range store near our home a couple of months ago and came across this Russell Hobbs toaster - the price was £19.99 and seemed like a good buy, after all it was Russell Hobbs, a name I associated with quality and at that price seemed like the perfect replacement. I admittedly just bought it there and then, no review reading or price comparisons first. Unfortunately though, it became pretty clear early on, that it wasn't going to live up to my expectations. The toaster came boxed and as soon as I lifted it out, I began having doubts about it's quality. Maybe I was expecting too much, after all, it did only cost me the best part of £20. The finishing on the toaster just felt a bit plastic if I'm honest, even though the main part is actually made of shiny stainless steel, with sections of black plastic at the bottom and around parts of each side. The Russell Hobbs logo is printed on the sides on top of the stainless steel. The stainless steel looked lovely at first, but soon started to look a bit dirty with fingerprints and crumbs, even though it was regularly wiped. This is a problem I usually have with stainless steel though and I have a good specialised cleaner that works well on it. It is a two slice toaster and therefore has two compartments for the bread to be placed into. The two compartments for slices of toast seemed to be very flimsy when I took the packaging away and the whole thing was very light to pick up out of the box, not really something I associate with fantastic quality. I usually find that the heavier something is, the more robust it is and this item certainly didn't prove do be an exception to that rule. Apart from endless amount of packaging, all the box contained was the toaster itself and a set of instructions. although it is quite a basic model and doesn't have many fancy features so was pretty quick to get used to. It measures 18.8cm x 18cm x 29.5cm so is quite compact and doesn't use up too much space. Basics The toaster comes with a dial on the side that goes from 1 to 6 to allow the user to set the degree of toasting, 1 being very light and 6, in my words, being burnt to a singe, with the others being somewhere inbetween. There is also a defrost button on the side for frozen bread to be toasted and a cancel button that allows the user to stop the toasting at any time and release the bread. There's also a high lift option to help remove the bread from the toaster and a bagel setting too, although I can't really comment on how well this feature works as I've never used it. A light appears on the side when the toaster is in use. There is a crumb tray underneath the toaster that can be pulled out when necessary to empty any excess crumbs away that it collects. The crumb tray works well, so that's a positive. It's a shame that I haven't got many more positives to tell you about. The toaster actually looks good on the worktop too, so that's another, but to me the cosmetics of the toaster are secondary - it's the way it's toasts that's the primary function and this is where things went wrong. Toasting Ability This, in my view can be summed up in two words, not good. I use the toaster usually for toasting bread, two rounds placed in either side. I use setting 3 because I like them toasted at an average level, not burnt, but not so it just comes out looking like when it went in. This is not usually what I end up with though. What I do end up with is a burnt side on the side facing outwards and an underdone side on the side facing inwards. In addition to this if I use bigger pieces of bread, the parts of the bread at the bottom of the toaster end up much more toasted than the parts towards the top, meaning I get such a very inconsistent toasting. I've now started to use Danish malted bread for my toast, just because it toasts better in it than any bread with bigger slices, the bigger one I tried originally was the well named 'toastie' bread! This did make me laugh a bit, a toaster designed too small to toast a very popular 'toastie' bread properly. Anyway, with this bread, I can use it but I have to cancel the toaster halfway through and flip the piece of bread over and also back to front. This leads me on to the flashes. Flashes I first noticed these after pressing the cancel button one morning about a month ago, a flash appeared from the toaster as it popped the bread back up. This made me worry and a lot more wary of using the cancel button, so much so, that I've stopped using it unless I really have to. It looks like the same flash I've seen before from putting a plug in a four way adaptor sometimes. Since I've stopped using the cancel button, I've seen the flashes again. I noticed last week that it happened again, even though I never touched the cancel button this time, it was just the end of the toasting cycle and was automatically popping the toast back up itself. I've now stopped using the toaster completely and will be replacing the toaster as soon as I can with another model. Conclusion Although I keep thinking that perhaps it's because I didn't pay very much for it, it still should be fit for purpose and in my view, I don't think it is really. It could just be that mine is faulty, but the flashes that I've seen should not be happening and it should be able to toast a piece of bread properly and on both sides equally, it is described as a toaster after all! I give the product 1 star unfortunately, I don't recommend this product and I for one will be looking at other brands before choosing Russell Hobbs again. It's a shame really, because the products I've had from Russell Hobbs in the past, including a previous toaster that lasted a few years, have always been high quality and reliable. I'm afraid I can't say the same for this model. Thanks for reading :o) Read the complete review |
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