Hamilton Beach SmartToast® 4 Slice Toaster

 (7 customer reviews)

Purchased this Hamilton Beach 4-slice toaster about 6 months ago. After 2 months of using it, I burnt my toast in the right two slots. Not a big deal right? Wrong! It burnt because the heating elements wouldn't shut off! Even after the pull-down lever came back up, they were still on.
Pressing that fancy "cancel" button didn't do anything. I had to unplug it. For the next week or so after that I had to make sure I unplugged the toaster whenever I finished using it (probably a good practice anyhow). The heating elements eventually burnt themselves out and now the right side doesn't do anything. That's my experience, hope it keeps someone from burning their house down -at the very least, perhaps it will remind people to unplug their toaster before they walk away from it.

I purchased this toaster last week, and am kicking myself for not looking online for reviews. The first time we used it, it spewed a terrible smell (like burning plastic). This was not the kind of light "first use" smell you get sometimes with some products. This was so bad, I had to open the windows in our house, and the toast my daughter made smelled like it was made of burnt plastic itself.

We've used the toaster 4 times since and the smell hasn't gotten better.

To make matters worse, the entire front and top of the toaster gets very hot. This may seem like a non-issue, but I've never had a toaster with this much surface space that gets burning hot--it makes it difficult to get your toast or bagel out without burning yourself.

I'm writing this to warn other people, since I'm taking it back to the store pronto. Do not buy this thing. It's a complete waste of money.

Nice toaster until it turns into a fire hazard. This toaster has been recalled by Hamilton Beach....visit their website.