TechGearLab's review of the Amazon Basics 2 Slice Toaster came out split: it does bagels and frozen waffles well and struggles with plain bread. Six browning settings and extra-wide slots serve bagels nicely. Bread is another story, with light settings barely warming it and medium settings producing patchy, uneven results. The bagel function is consistently good. Households that mostly toast bagels or frozen items will be fine; anyone who wants reliably even toast won't.
Full review
Bagels come out right, bread does not
This is the whole review in one line. The bagel setting toasts the cut face to an even golden brown while leaving the outer crust soft and warm, and it does it consistently. Plain bread is a different machine: TechGearLab's Mallory Paige found the light setting barely warms a slice, drying it rather than toasting it, and the medium setting produces a patchwork of pale and dark across the same piece. Repeated trials gave the same result, which points at heat distribution rather than bad luck.
Extra-wide slots that earn their name
The slots are long and wide enough to take a bagel half or a thick hand-cut slice without wedging, which is genuinely uncommon at this price and is the main structural advantage over a basic budget toaster. Frozen waffles come out crisp, better than expected. Between the slot width and the bagel function, the machine is built around exactly one breakfast and does it well.
Six settings with abrupt steps between them
There are 6 browning levels, but the jumps between them are coarse rather than graduated, so the useful range is narrower than the number suggests. Some owners settle on avoiding the lowest setting entirely because it does so little. That is a workaround rather than a feature, and it is the kind of imprecision that separates this from a toaster with real browning control.
Residual heat changes the second round
Heat left over from the previous cycle shifts the result of the next one, so the second batch on the same setting comes out darker than the first. On a 900 watt element that lag is more pronounced than on a more powerful toaster. For a household toasting two slices once a morning it never comes up; for anyone feeding several people in sequence it means adjusting on the fly.
A crumb tray, a lit panel and a pop
The practical details are handled properly: the crumb tray slides out for cleaning, the control panel is illuminated so the selected setting is readable in a dim kitchen, and there is a cancel button to stop a cycle. The carriage pops up audibly enough that reviewers mention it. Build quality is functional rather than solid — adequate for daily use, without the materials that suggest a decade of it.
Cheap enough to forgive one of these faults
TechGearLab rates it 4.2 out of 5 and Bon Appétit 3.5 out of 5, and the gap between those scores is roughly the gap between judging it on price and judging it on toast. At this money the wide slots and the working bagel function are real value. Anyone whose actual requirement is an evenly browned slice of ordinary bread is buying the wrong toaster, and no setting on this one fixes that.
Strengths
- +Makes great bagels with even browning and ideal texture contrast
- +Effective for frozen waffles, producing crispy results
- +Affordable price point at $22.90
- +Extra wide slots accommodate large items like bagels
Watch-outs
- −Uneven toasting performance with light and medium settings
- −Inconsistent results across slices, especially with regular bread
How it compares
The Amazon Basics toaster excels in bagel toasting and is affordable, but its uneven performance on bread makes it less reliable than the Breville 'A Bit More' or Elite Gourmet models. While it's a budget-friendly option, the inconsistent results across slices make it a poor choice for those seeking even toasting on regular bread types.
Rating sources
“the Amazon Basics Two Slice Toaster is a solid, no frills toaster that delivers consistent performance. It's not the most premium option, but it gets the job done with reliable toasting, easy cleanup, and a reasonable price.”
“Look at that. Oh man, isn't that beautiful? That's a toaster.”
Our 4.1 score is the average of these published ratings. Ratings marked * were derived from the reviewer’s written analysis or video transcript — the publisher didn’t print an explicit numeric score, so we inferred one from their own words. Click through to verify. More about methodology.
