The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster with Extra-Wide Slots 22217 is a simple, budget-friendly toaster. Even though its slots aren't particularly wide, they can fit thicker slices of bread and lift high enough for you to grab smaller items like English muffins without burning yourself. It has a dial with seven preset settings, but no bagel setting to help prevent burning the bottom of your bagel.
Our Verdict
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster provides decent performance for day-to-day use. It's a simple, compact model that doesn't offer a particularly large capacity and lacks convenience features, but it delivers excellent performance for basic toasting. It browns the surface of your baked goods evenly, and they don't take long to pop back up, which helps ensure they don't dry out before reaching a golden-brown shade. That said, without one-sided toasting, it offers only fair performance for bagels, buns, and English muffins, since the outside toasts just as much as the inside. It's excellent at containing crumbs, though, which helps keep your counters clean.
Toasts evenly on both sides.
Toasts quickly, without leaving baked goods dry.
Requires infrequent cleaning after use.
Doesn't offer one-sided toasting.
Lacks quality-of-life features.
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster is an excellent choice for toast. This model toasts quickly, retaining more moisture, so your toast stays soft in the middle, even if you like it dark. It toasts evenly, too. Both sides come out uniformly browned across almost the entire surface, and you get similar results from both slots.
Toasts evenly on both sides.
Toasts quickly, without leaving baked goods dry.
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster is an alright choice for bagels. It toasts quickly and evenly, without drying out your bagel. However, it doesn't include a bagel mode, so there's no way to toast just one side, and you have to manually increase the timer to toast a bagel properly.
Toasts evenly.
Toasts quickly, without leaving baked goods dry.
Doesn't offer one-sided toasting.
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster does an excellent job of containing crumbs. While a few crumbs, seeds, or loose grains still fall past the crumb tray, it catches most of them, keeping your counters clean.
Requires infrequent cleaning after use.
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster is very compact. Its narrow, shallow design makes it easy to find a place for on cramped counters and easy to store when not in use.
Compact design.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Jul 13, 2026:
We've updated the writing in this review to align with Test Bench 1.2.
- Updated Jul 13, 2026: We've updated this review to Test Bench 1.2, which adds three new test boxes: Size, One-Sided Toasting, and Moisture Retention. We also updated the Usage and Performance Usages at the top of the review to reflect the new tests and provide clearer buying guidance for users. You can read more in the Changelog.
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Updated May 14, 2026:
We mentioned the BELLA 4-Slice Slim in the Features box for users who want a toaster with more convenience features.
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Updated May 11, 2026:
We added a link to the BELLA 2-Slice Slim in the Toasting Speed box for users who want a faster toaster.
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster comes in 'Black' or 'White,' and we tested it in 'Black.' See the label for our unit. There's also a four-slice variant with the same features and design, but it may perform differently.
If you come across another variant, tell us about it in the comments, and we'll update our review.
Popular Toaster Comparisons
The Hamilton Beach 2-Slice Toaster with Extra-Wide Slots is a simple, compact toaster, available at a budget-friendly price. Unlike some pricer options, it lacks convenience features. For example, while the Revolution InstaGLO R180 includes options for bagels and frozen items, along with a cycle countdown indicator, this model only includes a shade selector and a cancel button. That said, it offers excellent performance for simple toasting tasks. It toasts even more evenly than the Black+Decker 2-Slice T2569B, another simple model with excellent toasting performance, and it finishes toasting quickly, so your baked goods don't dry out. This model is a particularly good choice for small spaces thanks to its compact design. It's even narrower than some single-slot toasters, like the Dash Clear View Long Slot. If you're looking for a simple option for a small kitchen and don't need extra features like a cycle countdown indicator or one-sided toasting, it's an excellent choice.
If you want to see which toasters we recommend, check out the best 2-slice toasters, the best 4-slice toasters, and the best toasters.
The Hamilton Beach 2 Slice Toaster with Extra-Wide Slots 22217 is better than the bella 2-Slice Slim for most people. Both toasters are simple, budget-friendly options that toast quickly, without drying out your bread, but the Hamilton Beach toasts more evenly, leaving your bread uniformly browned on both sides. It also leaves fewer crumbs on your counter. That said, as a long-slot toaster, the bella gives you more room for longer slices, and because it only has one slot, it can fit into narrow spaces that the Hamilton Beach is too wide for.
Test Results
If you're looking for a budget-friendly toaster with additional features, consider the bella 4-Slice Slim, which has buttons for bagels and frozen items.
It offers a decent toasting speed, but if you want something that toasts a little faster, consider the bella 2-Slice Slim.
