Now seems like a good time to review our main toaster:-) We actually own three, but this is the one we use at the moment, the Russell Hobbs Classic 4 slicer. Our first toaster was a cream two slicer, the second one was one I won that had a radio in that I actually still like but the main problems with one and two were that they only did two slices of toast at a time. My husband is a hungry man and likes to have four slices at a time. I think his record is 8 slices for breakfast.

How we got this
My Husband's sister (my SIL) had heard enough moaning from her brother about how inadequate two slices of toast are for breakfast and bought him this four slicer for Christmas three years ago. He was delighted about this and immediately installed it.

Looks
The toaster is a pretty polished silver steel colour and is described as classic styling with modern features. you can get this in either polished or brushed steel effect. I wouldn't mind either.

In use
Fortunately, it is optional to make four slices of toast and you can just put two in operation at a time. The slots are quite wide so can take quite big pieces of bread but they have an internal grip that centres the bread too. There is a spring at the top of the lever so you can pop your toast up a bit further if it is short bread or if it gets a bit jammed in. If you feel your bread has had enough time or you are doing something like a pikelet, you can press the cancel button which pops up the toast. This also works well if you want to reapeat toast for a further ten seconds or so. It takes around two minutes to toast the bread to perfection but there are settings to alter timings etc. if you feel it is under or over cooked.

Extra features
There is a frozen bread button too but I have never used this as I find the normal toast button toasts enough to defrost too. Some budget toasters don't have this but this toaster does have a crumb tray whih you can remove to empty.

Price
On the RH website this is £44.99 which is a bit expensive for a toaster I think, you can currently pick this toaster up a lot cheaper from Debenhams so it is worth shopping around for a better price.

My thoughts
I first resisted this toaster as I think four slices encourages you to eat more bread. But since DH was bought the toaster, we have had a daughter who eats toast at breakfast or with an egg (as soldiers!) so it can be handy to make mine and her toast together. It does take up quite a lot of counter space but where we have it it is accommodated nicely. I don't think we could go back to a two slicer ever again now!

Final word
We have had this toaster for 2 and a bit years now and it has never failed us. If we get five years out of it I will be happy with that. With daily use it does get very crumby but it is not difficult to empty the crumb tray and wipe the counter under and around it. The polished effect needs wiping down and buffing up to keep it new looking but you would have to clean any appliance in a similar way so it is not really any extra work. The colour scheme fits in with most kitchens and I feel that for a gift it has had a lot of regular use.