Cuisinart Customizable Toaster, 4-Slice

Excellent in full batch toasting. Excellent in color range toasting. Excellent in one slice toasting. Excellent in ease of use.

The Cuisinart CPT-122 2-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster and its four-slot version, the Cuisinart CPT-142 4-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster, both produced some of the finest, evenly browned bread of all the toasters we tested. The Cuisinarts offer a wide range of settings and easy-to-use controls, and remained cool to the touch even after toasting multiple batches. These toasters are also covered under a three-year warranty, which is exceptional compared with the one-year warranty that comes with most toasters.

The Touch to Toast is affordable for an automatic, 4-slice toaster.

The Cuisinart CPT-440 was one of the steadiest toasters we tested, yielding consistently satisfying results on all settings. The classy-looking, leverless design gives it an appropriately luxurious feel for the price.

Like the ProLine, the Cuisinart Touch to Toast also comes with seven shade settings, and features slots that automatically adjust to the thickness of your bread and ensure even toasting. The most eye-catching feature on the Cuisinart is the front-mounted LCD display. Using a diminishing bar format, the display illustrates the remaining preparation time. Even with such fail-proof design enhancements, humans may still manage to forget about their toast once it’s left their line of sight. Thankfully, the reheat option allows you to revive your forgotten, cold toast without further browning. Designed to minimize heat on the uncut sides of bagels, you can say “so long” to burnt sesame seeds on your everything bagels with the Cuisinart Touch to Toast.

The CPT-440’s four-slice design is perfect for busy households and caters to everyone’s toasting preferences with independent controls on each side. Just select your shade setting on the easy-to-read digital displays, which also act as a countdown timer once toasting starts. You can also choose from the buttons to enable specialized settings, including “Bagel,” “Defrost,” and “Reheat.” The CPT-440 is also lever-less and designed with a motorized bread lift, so it doesn’t pop up like a traditional toaster — instead, it quietly raises up your perfectly-toasted bagel and beeps to let you know it’s done.

Four slots with dual controls. Slots measure 1.5" each. Multi-setting browning dials. Options for bagels, reheating, and defrosting. Carriage lever with extra lift. Slide-out crumb tray.

Uneven toasting.

In our tests, the outer slots unevenly toasted the bread on both sides.

Aside from the lack of a lever, the CPT-440 doesn't offer much unique functionality over cheaper competitors.

May not toast evenly, even on settings intended to do so.