PROS: This toaster is automatic, with a motorized carriage raising and lowering the bread, and the Lift and Look feature lets you monitor the toast’s browning.
CONS: The white case gives the toaster a cheaper aesthetic.
VERDICT: The Breville Lift and Look gives you high-end toasting functions, but it doesn’t have a high-end aesthetic.
The Breville Lift and Look is part of the Breville White series of kitchen appliances. This toaster includes many of the same features found in more expensive toasters, like motorized toasting and a digital display. The Breville Lift and Look is an automatic toaster. There isn’t a lever on this toaster. Rather, the toasting cycle starts when you press the toast button on top of the appliance. The motorized carriage lowers the toast down and back up. This toaster has five preset shade settings, but the LED indicator lets you select shades between those five settings, giving you more toasting precision.
The Lift and Look feature and the A Bit More function are both very handy on this toaster. The Lift and Look feature – for which the toaster is named – lets you check on the browning mid-cycle. You just press a single button and the bread automatically pops up, stays up for a few seconds and lowers back down. This feature works hand-in-hand with the A Bit More function. The A Bit More button allows you to add an additional 30 seconds to the toasting time without changing the main shading dial. Using these functions helps you take the guesswork out of your toasting. You can get the perfect toast on any bread without having to tap a shading dial a millimeter to left or right or trying to peer down inside a toaster and manually stop it at the perfect moment.
This toaster doesn’t come in a four-slice model. However, it has elongated toasting slots that let you toast up to four pieces of loaf bread at once or longer pieces of artisan bread and pastries. Unlike four-slice toasters though, there are no dual controls on the Breville Lift and Look. Both toasting slots function at the same time on the same shade setting.
The case is cool to the touch when the toaster is in use, but it is also made of white plastic. This takes away from the toaster from a design aesthetic point of view. Breville designed this toaster to coordinate with its White series, which is a starter package for the home gourmet. While it looks better than a basic electric toaster, it won’t be a design ascent for your kitchen.
Breville include a one-year warranty with this toaster. There is also email support for any questions or problems you may encounter, and there’s a toll-free help line if you would prefer to talk to someone in person. There are digital copies online of all the manuals in the Smart Toaster series. Breville also has a living manual on its website, which takes user questions and responses from its online help forums and combines them into a user manual format. This lets you quickly reference frequently asked questions or advice that’s not included in a standard user manual.
Summary
The Breville Lift and Look provide many high-end features included in the pricier toasters. Unfortunately, the white plastic case gives this toaster a cheaper look. Yet, the automatic toasting cycle, cool-touch sides, Lift and Look feature and A Bit More function are all great features that will help you perfectly toast all kinds of breads.