Toaster Test: My $99 Retro 2-Slice Review

My old toaster died on a Tuesday morning in September. Not dramatically — no sparks, no tripped breaker — it just pushed up two slices of bread that looked exactly the same as when they went down: pale, faintly warm, like the appliance had quietly decided it was done pretending. For a week I ate untoasted bagels and felt personally betrayed by my own kitchen. Then I did what I always do when a small appliance quits: I went to FLNORW MALL and bought the most sensible replacement I could find without overthinking it — a $99 2-slice retro toaster with a 1.5-inch wide slot and a bagel button. Ninety days and roughly 200 breakfasts later, I have opinions.

Why My Old Toaster Had to Go

The old one was a $25 hand-me-down from my college roommate’s brother, and it had been limping along for eight years. Its last two years were a comedy routine: the left slot browned, the right slot cremated, and the middle of the dial produced the same shade at settings 2, 4, and 6. I actually timed it one Saturday — three minutes at setting 3, and the bread came out with a tan line down the center where the heating element had given up on one side.

My requirements for the replacement were short. Two slices were enough for our household of two adults and two kids who eat in shifts. I wanted a stainless steel toaster instead of another plastic box that yellows in a year, and I wanted a slot wide enough for a real bagel, because my wife has strong feelings about halved bagels that come out squashed. The FLNORW listing for this retro toaster hit all three, and the price sat in the middle of the market — not the cheapest, not a splurge.

The $99 Retro Toaster, Unboxed

The box arrived on a Friday. First impression: it looks like it costs more than $99. The 430 stainless steel shell has a glossy finish, and the retro 1950s-style dashboard — a chunky browning dial and three labeled buttons — is the whole reason it reads “design object” instead of “countertop appliance.” Dimensions on the product page are 10.4 inches long, 6.26 inches wide, and 7 inches tall, and it weighs just 3.4 pounds, so it lives in the corner of our counter without hogging it. Color options are black and silvery; we got the black, which hides crumbs better.

The spec sheet tells the rest: 1.5-inch wide slots, a 5-setting browning dial, three functions — Bagel (toasts one side only), Defrost (thaws frozen bread first), and Cancel — plus a pullout crumb tray and built-in cord storage underneath. Item code is W1134126848. One honest note straight from the product page, which I appreciated: the metal shell gets hot during toasting, so you let it cool before moving it. That is true of every steel toaster ever made, but it is good manners to say it.

Toaster Test #1: The 1.5-Inch Wide Slot

Here is the thing nobody tells you about cheap toasters: the slots are the whole product. Every 2 slice toaster I owned before this one had slots barely wider than an inch, which meant a halved bagel went in at an angle and came out with scrape marks and one untoasted edge. The 1.5-inch slot on this one swallowed a halved everything bagel flat, no forcing, no scraping.

Over the first month I ran everything I could find through it: grocery-store everything bagels, Texas toast cut a full inch thick, English muffins, frozen waffles, and one sad croissant that a toaster had no business handling (it did fine, for the record). The wide slot is the feature I would now pay extra for on purpose. If you are shopping toasters by one number, make it the slot width.

Toaster Test #2: The Bagel Button vs the $6 Coffee-Shop Habit

The Bagel function toasts the cut side and gently warms the outside — which is exactly how a bagel should behave, and the opposite of what my old toaster did (both sides scorched, outside like cardboard). My weekday routine settled into a rhythm: halved everything bagel, Bagel setting, browning dial at 3, cream cheese, out the door by 7:05.

Here is where the math gets fun, and I will flag the estimates as estimates. A bagel with cream cheese at the coffee shop near my office runs about $6 (typical, 2026). A six-pack of grocery bagels is roughly $4.50, so about $0.75 per bagel at home. Over these 90 days I ate roughly 64 weekday bagels. Coffee-shop route: about $384. Home route: about $48 in bagels plus the $99 toaster — $147 total. That is roughly $237 saved, which means the toaster paid for itself around the 18th weekday morning. Everything after that was pure profit.

Toaster Test #3: Defrost at 6:40 AM

Our freezer always holds a bag of bagels, because I buy them on sale and freeze them the same day. The Defrost function thaws the bread first and then toasts it in one cycle — no second pass, no “toast it, realize the middle is still cold, toast it again into a hockey puck.” A frozen bagel takes about 90 seconds longer than a fresh one, which I measured twice because I am that person.

I am not the only one who cares about this. A November 2026 roundup of the most reliable toasters from homegardenlift.com named consistent browning the real reliability test, and picked a 2-slice Keenstone model specifically for frozen breads — “a 2-slice toaster that can bake frozen bread properly and tastefully.” Their thick-slice pick was a Whall 2-slice. This FLNORW unit is not on their list, but it passes the same test they describe: frozen in, evenly browned out, no second cycle needed.

Toaster Test #4: Five Browning Settings, One Picky Household

Four people, four opinions about toast. Here is how the dial actually maps in our house:

Setting 1: the kids’ frozen waffles — barely kissed, still soft in the middle. Exactly right.
Setting 2: my wife’s sandwich bread — light gold, no crunch that fights the filling.
Setting 3: my everything bagel, every weekday. Same shade, batch after batch.
Setting 4: Saturday Texas toast — deep gold, sturdy under garlic butter.
Setting 5: tested once, out of curiosity. Smoky. Never again.

The consistency is the story. Setting 3 on day one and setting 3 on day ninety produce the same bagel, which my old toaster could not do on day two. And the Cancel button has real value: it is the eject lever that has saved at least three bagels when the kitchen smelled one shade past perfect.

The Real Math: a $99 Toaster vs Buying Breakfast Out

Let us finish the accounting. A typical modern 2-slice toaster draws between 600 and 1,200 watts (Wikipedia), so at roughly 900 watts and three minutes a session, one breakfast costs about 0.045 kWh — under a cent at the EIA’s 2024 residential average of about $0.17 per kWh. Electricity is a rounding error; the bagel is the expense.

For market context: a budget 2-slice toaster starts around $20 (Bella’s slim 2-slice was listed at $19.99 at P.C. Richard in November 2026), and a premium 4-slice KitchenAid runs about $220 (Best Buy Canada). This $99 stainless steel toaster sits squarely in the middle — and the middle is where the retro steel shell, the wide slot, and the bagel/defrost functions live. Ninety-day total: $99 + ~$48 in bagels + ~$1 in electricity ≈ $148, against roughly $384 for the coffee-shop route (all figures my estimates, flagged as such). For perspective, the toaster itself is a 1893 invention — Crompton & Company of Chelmsford, England, per Wikipedia — and 133 years later, the job is still “brown bread evenly.” This one does the job.

The Verdict: Who Should Buy This Toaster

Buy this toaster if you eat bagels or thick bread more than twice a week, if your counter is small enough that a toaster oven feels like a commitment, and if you want an appliance that looks intentional instead of apologetic. The wide slot is the headline feature, the bagel setting is the daily-use feature, and the defrost button is the one you will brag about on a frozen Monday morning. My honest complaints are few: the steel shell runs hot during toasting (the page warns you — listen to it), black shows fingerprints if you grab it mid-cycle, and there is no reheat-only mode, so a bagel from yesterday gets the full treatment.

Skip it if you routinely feed four or more toast-eaters at once — you want a 4-slice model — or if you need a toaster oven for open-faced melts and mini pizzas. For a two-slice household that eats real bread, though, this is the rare $99 appliance that paid for itself before the return window would have closed.

Want the exact setup? This is the 2-slice retro toaster with a 1.5-inch wide slot I tested — $99, InStock, with the bagel, defrost, and cancel functions. If you are kitting out the rest of the kitchen, my triple-pot buffet slow cooker review covers the party side, the 71-inch microwave hutch cabinet gave me my counter back, and the full lineup is at FLNORW MALL.