This appears to be a well designed toaster that unfortunately doesn't work properly. As another reviewer stated, on the frozen setting it intermittently (but regularly) pops up after a very short period, completely untoasted. There's no point in having useful novel features if you cannot get the basics right. There's obviously some quality control issues with this product as half of the reviews are flagging similar problems. Which is a shame, because when it works it toasts really well - and the Quick Look feature is so simple but useful that I'm amazed all toasters don't have it - but it needs to work well 100% of the time not just sometimes. If it worked properly all the time it would be a 4/5 star product. ============================================= I'm exchanging this so shall see if the next one is any better... ============================================= I've now received my replacement and unfortunately it seems worse than the first one! Setting the browning control to full(5): - on the 1st use it popped up after 10 seconds (all indicator lights still lit!); - on the 2nd use it popped after 40 seconds (indicator lights just under 5); - 3rd try, popped after 1min 40 seconds, indicator lights just over 3); - only after the 5th use did it manage to count all the way down to the last indicator, taking just over 4 minutes, before correctly popping. Just in case the toaster needs some running in, I'll give it a go for a week. And I'll try the frozen & crumpet settings that caused the last one to regularly pop up early. But if it doesn't behave flawlessly it's going straight back - and this time for a refund. My last toaster NEVER popped up early like this, and nor has any other toaster I've owned. Manufacturing a toaster is hardly rocket science. Looking around the internet, this specific model has dreadful reviews, with many people all describing the same problems, suggesting a permanent quality control issue. Perhaps I should have listened to them. ============================================= Choosing browning level 4, Crumpet & Frozen settings, this is what happens: - 1st attempt, it popped after 53 seconds; the indicator light hardly moved, and crumpets totally untoasted; - 2nd attempt, it popped after 1 min 40 seconds, indicator light around 3, crumpets untoasted; - only at the 3rd attempt did it manage to count all the way down through the indicator lights, as it's meant to, taking 4 min 38 seconds. Based on all the evidence so far, this toaster has no consistency and so is useless. Bearing in mind this is the 2nd faulty one I've had in a week, and is arguably even worse than the 1st one, I'd be interested to hear what Sage customer service staff have to say about this. ============================================= Not one to give up easily I bought another one of these from a different retailer (not Amazon), and it seems I've finally found one that works reliably almost all the time. Hurray. So I decided to amend this review again. This should be a 5 star toaster, but is only 1 star if you happen to have an unreliable one (and I had two of them...). But 3rd time lucky for me, so I'm upgrading my review to 3 stars, being halfway between the 5 stars it would have if I'd not had to return 2 of them first, and the 1 star those unreliable ones deserved. In summary: if you get lucky and find a reliable one, this toaster is excellent and toasts better than any other toaster I've used; but my experience was that the chances are you'll get an unreliable one or two first, so be prepared for a load of hassle trying to get your hands on a decent one. Hence 3 stars. Fix the quality control and it'd be 5 stars. ============================= A year after purchase, and on my 3rd toaster in that time, I'm downgrading this to 2 stars. Why? Because when toasting it almost always pops-up part way through the toasting period, way before it's finished counting down through the designated time. As a result, the only way to use this toaster now is as a manual toaster instead of automatic: that means setting the browning level to full and then just periodically checking the toast colour by manually taking a peek at it. This will usually also entail manually restarting the toasting process after it's wrongly popped up the toast before the time is complete. IN SUMMARY: I have never experienced toasters from ANY other manufacturers that randomly pops-up part way through toasting, but I've had 3 different Sage ones do this, and many other reviewers report the same. AVOID THIS PRODUCT until Sage (Breville) fix this problem. ========================= Just over a year since purchase and I'm now marking this down to a single star. It pops up all the time making toasting a time consuming pile of hassle. AVOID THIS PRODUCT!
