Magimix Vision Toaster Review
The Magimix Vision Toaster is a striking single-slot toaster, with glass panels front and rear. It’s an unusual design, and it oozes quality, but it isn’t the most even toaster that I’ve used. It’s a great choice if a statement design is more important than running costs or perfect toast, but other high-end toasters are […]
Verdict
The Magimix Vision Toaster is a striking single-slot toaster, with glass panels front and rear. It’s an unusual design, and it oozes quality, but it isn’t the most even toaster that I’ve used. It’s a great choice if a statement design is more important than running costs or perfect toast, but other high-end toasters are available.
Pros
- Looks gorgeous – especially in use
- Clever design touches
- Great build quality
Cons
- Expensive
- High power consumption
- Browning could be more even
Availability
- UKRRP: £170
- USAunavailable
- EuropeRRP: €280
- Canadaunavailable
- Australiaunavailable
Key Features
- ToastingOne extra wide and deep slot, which can take larger slices of bread or multiple slices at once.
- SettingsSingle browning control, plus dedicated modes for defrosting, reheating and baguettes.
Introduction
Magimix used to offer a small range of toasters, of which only the Vision still survives. It’s an absolute delight to look at, featuring a single, long slot, visible front and back through glass windows. The Magimix Vision has useful features such as frozen and bagel modes, and novel quartz heating elements, but there’s no single-slice mode.
Design and features
- Stunning looks
- Straightforward controls
- No bell or tray damping
The Magimix Vision is doubtless one of the best-looking toasters around. It’s an unusual device in several ways. Most obviously, it’s built from stainless steel and has huge double-glazed windows on each side. It’s also configured with a single slot that’s long enough for two slices of bread, rather than the more common arrangement of two small parallel slots.
Look inside and you’ll get an almost unobstructed view of your toast as it steadily browns. This is only possible because, rather than standard ‘woven’ heating elements held up parallel to the slots, the Vision has two powerful quartz elements at its base. In use, these glow much like a mini bar fire, with the heat reflected back onto the bread by the glass doors.
The Vision has a typical range of straightforward controls. In the centre, there’s a combined browning dial and stop button. To the right there are reheat and frozen buttons, and to the left a baguette button, together with one to return the toaster to its default mode.
There may only be one slot, but it’s a big one, comfortably capable of swallowing up two thick-cut slices of home-baked bread, or three or four slices of baguette. Its extra-lift feature is handy if you can’t quite retrieve smaller bits of bread.
This toaster has a removable crumb tray, accessed from the end. You can also release its glass walls, which flop down by 90 degrees giving you great access for cleaning – or for fishing out any bread that’s got stuck. Everything moves with precision, giving a brilliant impression of solidity and quality – Magimix offers a three-year warranty, and guarantees you’ll be able to get spares for 10 years.
Performance
- Looks even better in use
- Toasts a little unevenly
- Comparatively power hungry
This toaster looks even better in use. As its elements heat up, they bathe your toast in a warming glow that spills out into the kitchen. Despite the light’s strong red tint, you really can watch your toast as it browns, so it’s easy to judge whether you need to hit the stop button early. Cleverly, the elements are covered by shutters when toasting stops. Heat still escapes, but infrared light is blocked, so your toast stays warm and doesn’t get any darker.
Given that the elements are right at the bottom, I wondered whether the Vision would toast evenly across the height of each slice. In fact it does this well, but I encountered a different problem – it toasts less well towards each end of the long slot. It’s not a disaster, but it’s disappointing in such an expensive device, and I’ve seen better from £30 cheapies.
I had no problems in fitting bagels, thick bread or baguettes in this toaster. At 140mm, the slot is one of the deepest I’ve measured, and deep enough that you don’t need to lay a typical slice of bread on its side. Magimix suggests the vision will take up to four slices of baguette. I fitted three slices of homebaked brown ciabatta and still had space left over.
This toaster has no power-saving mode when you only need a single slice. This is a bit of an issue, given that this appliance uses about 1.5 kilowatts (kW), which is roughly 50% more than typical for a two-slice toaster. Toasting a bagel used 0.03 kilowatt hours (kWh), and toasting thickly cut bread consumed 0.05kWh. That’s a little higher than I’ve measured from some other toasters, but it’s not a huge extra cost. Cook a bagel and one round of toast each day and, at the current 34p per kWh price cap, you’d still only pay about £10 a year.
You might need to move this toaster to extract its long crumb tray, and it’s a challenge finding the buttons that release its side windows for cleaning. Other than that, it’s easy to live with and easy to use.
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Should you buy it?
An ideal toaster if you’ve got deep pockets, and want to turn a simple toaster into a centrepiece for your kitchen
You can get better toast from cheaper toasters, as this model doesn’t cook very evenly.
Final Thoughts
The Magimix Vision is undoubtedly one of the best-looking toasters you can buy. It’s easy to use, fairly easy to clean, and will swallow up big, chunky cuts of bread. But this is an expensive toaster, and the results are just a little disappointing – especially towards the end of its long slot. If you don’t mind paying a premium to own and run a genuine talking point, this toaster is great. If you’re more interested in great toast, look elsewhere.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every toaster we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main toaster for the review period
We test with different sized bread, and see how well the toaster toasts one bit of bread. We follow up with a second slice immediately after to see if the toaster burns the second slice.
We test other cooking features where available: sandwich presses, grilling, etc.
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FAQs
It has one very wide and deep slot that can take multiple slices of bread.
This toaster has special settings for defrost, reheat and baguettes.
Full specs
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
