Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster Review: 9.9-Inch Slot, One Button

This bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster review starts with the number no listing prints: the slot is 9.9 inches long and 1.2 inches wide, per the manual.

This is a narrow long-slot pop-up toaster, not a feature machine. The useful question is whether a 9.9-inch chamber, a six-setting dial and one Cancel button beat a conventional wide-slot toaster at the same price.

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

Quick Verdict

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

• Best For: Small kitchens, apartments, RVs and dorms, plus anyone who toasts long bakery slices that will not fit a standard slot.
• Skip It If: You want a bagel, defrost or reheat preset, one-sided bagel heating, or steady browning at the ends of the dial.
• Biggest Strength: A 3.58-inch narrow side that still swallows a full sourdough slice, backed by a two-year Sensio mechanical warranty.
• Biggest Weakness: Browning is only dependable in the middle of the dial, and early-failure reports are common enough to matter at this price.
• Best Use Case: One or two slices of standard bread at setting 3 or 4, plus frozen waffles, which scored highest of all categories in independent testing.
• Main Trade-Off: You give up presets and repeatability to get counter space, five colors and a low price.

Specifications Table

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

Keep this listing separate from its siblings. This review stays on the two-slice Fits-anywhere model: one 9.9-inch chamber, 900W listed, a 3.58-inch narrow side and 2.46 lb. The four-slice Bella Slim is a different machine with two slots, a 6.14-inch depth and listings that quote 900W or 1400W. The older bella 2-Slice Toaster with two square slots is a third product at 1500W. Do not copy specs across those pages.

What It Is and How It Works

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

The bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster is a mechanical pop-up toaster with one long slot instead of two square ones. Two slices sit side by side, end to end, in a single 9.9-inch chamber. Push the lever down and it latches. Elements on both walls run until a timer releases the carriage.

That loop is the same idea as any budget pop-up toaster. What changes here is the geometry. A conventional toaster assumes your bread is about four inches wide and uniform. Real bakery bread breaks that assumption every week, and the long chamber is the fix.

There is no circuit board and no screen. The dial sets time, not temperature. That is why the same setting behaves differently on a cold machine than on a warm one, and why the first slice of the day comes out lighter than the second.

The Cancel button kills the cycle and pops the carriage early. The manual also treats it as the safety control: press CANCEL if the bread smokes, press CANCEL before unplugging, and never dig food out of the slot while the toaster is plugged in. That is the whole system.

Key Features

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

9.9-Inch Slot With a 1.2-Inch Width Limit

Marketing copy calls this a 10-inch long slot. The manual's parts list is more precise: 9.9 inches long by 1.2 inches wide. Length is the headline feature and it delivers. A hand-cut sourdough slice or a baguette section drops straight in.

Width is the number that decides returns. A supermarket bagel half is usually fine. A thick bakery bagel or a doorstop slice of Texas toast can reach or pass 1.2 inches, and forcing one in means the bread rubs the elements. The manual rules out torn slices, buttered bread, wrapped food, round or irregular loaves, and small items like breadsticks.

Six Shade Settings and a Single Cancel Button

The manual maps the dial simply. Settings 1 and 2 are light, 3 and 4 are medium, 5 and 6 are dark. It also tells you to re-toast at a higher number rather than expect one perfect pass. The Spruce Eats noticed the dial parks between the printed numbers, which gives finer control than six steps suggest.

What is missing matters more. TechGearLab logged no end-of-cycle indicator, so nothing warns you that a cycle is nearly done. There is no one-sided bagel heating either, so a bagel toasts on the cut face and the crust face together.

High-Lift Lever and Removable Crumb Tray

Lifting the lever past its resting point raises small items, so you are not fishing for an English muffin. TechGearLab still wanted more travel for muffin halves. The crumb tray pulls out of the base, and the manual asks for a weekly empty if you toast most days. The tray must be seated and completely closed before the next cycle.

Main Features

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

Matte Body That Hides Fingerprints

The soft matte finish is the reason this line sells. The Spruce Eats found it stays cooler to the touch than the metal-skinned toasters they have used, which matters in a kitchen where the toaster sits close to your hands. Plastic also scratches, and one owner reported the top flexing slightly while hot. That is a single report, not a pattern.

The Plasticizer Warning Buried in the Manual

The manual carries a caution almost no review repeats. Plasticizers from the feet can migrate into a countertop finish and darken it, so Bella asks you to place a non-plastic mat or coaster underneath. On light stone or sealed wood, that is a two-second habit worth building on day one.

Cord Wrap and a Deliberately Short Cord

The manual keeps the cord short on purpose, to cut the risk of snagging it off the counter, and tells you to plug straight into a wall outlet rather than a power strip run. The cord winds onto clips under the base. Do not wrap it tight around the body; that habit is how budget toasters end up with frayed cords at the strain relief.

What the Product Listings Get Wrong

Research on this toaster turns up claims that the official documents contradict. A few of them change what you should expect in the box.

• The phantom Reheat button. Several retail titles advertise 6 shade settings with Reheat and Cancel buttons. The manual's parts list and Bella's product page both show one button: Cancel. Check the panel the day it arrives.
• Bagel and frozen presets that belong to another model. Some roundups praise a Bella Slim Toaster for bagel and frozen functions. This two-slice panel has no such buttons. The four-slice Slim is the model with extra presets.
• Wattage is retailer data, not manual data. Listings and reviewers consistently say 900 watts. The manual never prints a wattage. It only requires a 120V AC wall outlet and warns that an overloaded circuit hurts performance.
• Anti-jam and auto-shutoff claims. Some titles include both. The manual describes neither. It does the opposite, telling you to unplug the toaster before freeing jammed bread.
• Mismatched dimensions. At least one large retailer lists this toaster near 12 by 7.5 by 8 inches. That contradicts Bella's own 3.58 by 14.88 by 6.85. Measure against the manufacturer numbers.
• Model suffixes look scarier than they are. The Plum unit appears as 35164-023A at one chain and 35164-063A on Amazon. The 35164 family is the same toaster; the suffix tracks retail packaging.

Dimensions

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

The published body size is 3.58 inches on the narrow side, 14.88 inches long and 6.85 inches tall, at 2.46 lb. Read those numbers carefully, because the space saving is easy to misread.

This toaster does not have a smaller footprint than a normal toaster. It has a differently shaped one. A standard two-slice model sits roughly square on the counter. This one is a long strip that is under four inches across. Set it lengthwise against your backsplash and it steals under four inches of counter depth. Set it sideways, poking into the room, and you gain nothing.

So measure the run, not just the depth. You need about 15 inches of clear counter along the wall and 6.85 inches of height, which clears most under-cabinet gaps. Check where your outlet sits too, because the cord is short by design and the manual wants it plugged directly into the wall.

Real-World Performance and Limitations

No hands-on testing was done for this article. The picture below comes from independent test publications and from patterns across hundreds of owner reviews.

TechGearLab ranked it 14th out of 16 toasters with a total score of 59. Bread toasting scored 5.0, bagels 6.0, frozen waffles 7.5 and ease of use 5.9. Their notes match what owners say. Level 2 barely colors the bread. Level 4 gives an even golden slice. Level 6 burns it, and browns one slice darker than the other. Two slices at medium took about two and a half minutes.

The Spruce Eats named it their space-saving pick and still listed uneven toasting as the drawback, with a simple fix: turn the slices around and run a short second pass. An independent reviewer at Freakin' Reviews found levels 1 through 4 dependable, level 5 smoky and level 6 charred, and saw the second batch brown more evenly because the machine had warmed up.

Put that together and the honest summary is short. The usable range is roughly 3 to 5, and the first cycle of the day runs light. Buy it expecting a two-setting toaster with four decorative settings and you will be happy.

Frozen waffles were the standout in testing. A long chamber heats a flat frozen item well, even without a defrost preset. If waffles and toaster pastries are your breakfast, this machine does better than its rank suggests. The manual does ask you to use the lightest shade for pastries.

One complaint deserves separating from the rest. Some owners report that only one side toasts. In a single-chamber design, both walls should heat on every cycle. A slice that stays pale on one face at setting 4 is not a design quirk. It is a faulty unit. Test for that in your first week and use the retailer's return window, which is faster than warranty service.

How It Compares

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

The four-slice model is the upgrade only if capacity is the problem. It does not fix browning; it doubles it. The Elite Gourmet wins purely on slot clearance, and its cool-touch body is a fair argument in a kitchen with kids. Neither one has the published test record this two-slice model has, so you are trading known mediocrity for unknown.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• The narrow side really is 3.58 inches, so it disappears against a backsplash where a normal toaster cannot sit.
• A 9.9-inch chamber takes full sourdough slices, baguette sections and Texas toast without cutting them down.
• Independent testing puts mid-dial results at genuinely even and golden, which is most of what a toaster is for.
• Frozen waffles scored highest of all the test categories, with no defrost preset needed.
• A two-year mechanical warranty from Sensio, which beats the one-year cover common at this price.
• Matte finish hides fingerprints and runs cooler to the touch than metal bodies, per The Spruce Eats.
• Controls are impossible to get wrong: a dial, a lever and one button.

Cons

• Settings 1, 2 and 6 are close to useless. Level 2 warms bread. Level 6 burns it and browns unevenly.
• No bagel, defrost or reheat preset, and no one-sided heating for bagels.
• No end-of-cycle indicator, so you watch the machine or you guess.
• The 1.2-inch slot width is tighter than the extra wide marketing suggests. Thick bakery bagels are a squeeze.
• Early failures recur in owner reviews: levers that will not latch, dead elements, a cracked top. Not the majority, but often enough to matter.
• Warranty service means a phone call, then shipping the toaster back at your own cost.
• The manual never prints wattage or a safety certification mark, so 900W rests on retailer data.

Who Should Buy It

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

• Renters and apartment cooks whose counter is already crowded by a coffee maker and a kettle.
• Bakery-bread households that slice their own sourdough and are tired of cutting loaves to fit.
• RV, dorm and office kitchens where a toaster has to live in a narrow strip or a cabinet shelf.
• Buyers who want matching colors across a small-appliance set and accept mid-range toasting.
• Anyone toasting one or two slices at a time who will settle the dial at 3 or 4 and leave it there.

Who Should Skip It

• Anyone who wants the same shade every morning. Repeatability is not this machine's strength.
• Bagel-first households that want one-sided heating or a dedicated defrost preset.
• Families toasting four slices at a time. Two slices per cycle becomes the bottleneck.
• Buyers with plenty of counter space, who gain nothing from the slim body and would brown better elsewhere.
• Anyone whose usual bread is thicker than 1.2 inches, such as puffy bakery bagels.
• Shoppers who confuse this two-slice model with the four-slice Slim or the older 1500W two-slot Bella.

Buying Guide

Lock the identity before you buy. This review covers the two-slice Fits-anywhere Slim Toaster, item family 35164 in Plum, sold on ASIN B0CZPDDVN3. If the title says four slices, two slots or 1500W, it is a different machine with different specs.

Measure twice. You need roughly 15 inches of clear counter along the wall, 6.85 inches of height, and a wall outlet close enough for a deliberately short cord. Then measure the bread you actually buy against the 1.2-inch slot width, because that is the specification most returns come down to.

Keep the receipt, and pass it on if the toaster is a gift. The two-year Sensio warranty covers only the original retail purchaser, it is not transferable, and proof of purchase is required. Warranty service starts with a call to 1-866-832-4843, and if the agent cannot resolve it you ship the unit back with shipping and insurance prepaid. In the first weeks, the retailer's return window is faster and cheaper.

Check the price rather than the hype. Bella lists this toaster at $24.99 on its own site, but retail pricing moves constantly across Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart, so confirm the current figure before ordering.

Expert Tips

• Run it empty once before the first slice. The manual expects a break-in cycle to burn off manufacturing oils, and it stops your first toast tasting like a factory.
• Start at 3 and adjust one notch at a time. Treat 5 and 6 as re-toast territory, not normal settings, and remember the dial parks between the numbers.
• Expect the first cycle of the day to run light. Testers saw the second batch brown more evenly because the chamber was already warm. Plan the pale slice for yourself.
• Toast two slices rather than one when you can. A single slice in a long chamber browns less evenly than a filled slot.
• Empty the crumb tray weekly and hear it click shut. The manual asks for weekly cleaning with frequent use, and the tray must be seated before the next cycle.
• Put a non-plastic mat under the feet. That comes straight from the manual's plasticizer warning and protects a countertop finish from staining.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster have a bagel or defrost setting?

No. The manual's parts list and Bella's product page show three controls: a browning dial, a high-lift lever and a single Cancel button. There is no bagel, defrost or reheat section anywhere in the manual. Some retail titles and roundups say otherwise, but those presets belong to the four-slice Bella Slim, a separate product.

How wide is the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster slot?

The manual lists 9.9 inches long by 1.2 inches wide, in one chamber. A standard supermarket bagel half fits. A thick bakery bagel or a doorstop slice of Texas toast may not, and forcing one in presses the bread against the elements.

How many watts is the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster?

Retail listings and independent reviewers consistently say 900 watts at 120 volts. That figure could not be confirmed in the official manual, which never prints a wattage. The manual only requires a 120V AC wall outlet and warns that a shared, overloaded circuit will hurt performance. Treat 900W as retailer data.

Why does one side of my toast come out lighter?

Mild unevenness is normal here and shows up in independent testing, especially at setting 6. Turning the slices around for a short second pass fixes most of it. A slice that stays genuinely pale on one face at setting 4 points to a faulty unit, so test for it in the first week and use the return window.

How long does the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster take?

About two and a half minutes for two slices at a medium setting, based on independent testing. That is average for the category. Owners who call it slow are usually running setting 5 or 6 to make up for pale results lower down, which stretches the cycle further.

What is the warranty on the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster?

Sensio Inc. covers two years against mechanical defects and 90 days on non-mechanical parts. It applies only to the original retail purchaser, it is not transferable, and the receipt is required. Claims start on 1-866-832-4843; if that call cannot fix it, you ship the toaster back with shipping and insurance prepaid.

Can I store the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster in a cabinet?

The manual says to unplug it, let it cool, clean it and store it in its box in a clean, dry place. It does not describe or approve vertical storage, even though other Fits-anywhere items are built to stand. Many owners do slide it into a cabinet; if you do, wind the cord onto the clips under the base rather than around the body.

How do I clean the crumb tray?

Unplug the toaster, let it cool, then pull the crumb tray out of the base and empty it. The manual asks for this at least weekly with frequent use, and the tray must be fully closed before the next cycle. Wipe the outside with a soft dry cloth, never metal polish, and never poke a knife into the slot while it is plugged in.

Is the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster part of any recall?

As of late September 2026, no. Bella's site lists one recall: a Sensio voluntary program covering two steam espresso machines, models 90195 and 22395, because the brew cup handle can eject. Toasters are not part of it. The model number sits on a sticker under the base, listed as the Item number.

What is the difference between the 2-slice and 4-slice Bella Slim Toasters?

Capacity and footprint. The two-slice has one 9.9-inch chamber and a 3.58-inch narrow side. The four-slice has two long slots, runs about 6.14 inches deep and weighs around a pound more. It also adds at least one control, though listings disagree whether that is Reheat or a Bagel preset with Defrost, and quote 900W or 1400W.

Which Bella Slim Toaster model number do I have?

The manual covers five item families: 35117, 35163, 35164, 35165 and 35226, one per color. Plum is 35164 and Oatmilk is 35117. Retailers add a suffix, so the same Plum unit appears as 35164-023A at one chain and 35164-063A at another. The sticker under the base carries the number to quote to support.

Does the outside of the Bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster get hot?

It gets warm. The manual states the appliance makes heat and steam, that metal parts heat up, and that surfaces outside the grip areas can get hot. The Spruce Eats still found the matte body cooler to the touch than metal-skinned toasters. Give it clear air on all sides and keep it away from curtains.

Final Verdict

Product images are original editorial illustrations.

The bella 2-Slice Slim Toaster earns its place for one reason: it makes acceptable toast in a footprint no conventional toaster can match, and the manual-verified 9.9 by 1.2 inch chamber takes bread that standard slots cannot. Buy it if counter depth or long bakery slices drive the decision, keep the dial between 3 and 5, and judge your unit hard in the first week, because early failures are the most common complaint. Skip it if you want presets, one-sided bagels or the same shade every morning, since the panel has a single Cancel button and the dial only behaves in its middle range. It is a good narrow toaster at a low price, not a good toaster that happens to be narrow.