bit-tech Shopping: Breadman TR520 Bread Maker

Rating: 6

Time with product: 8 Days

Strengths: price, ease of use

Weaknesses: recipe, plastic body, lcd screen

Summary: I bought this machine from Target for $49.99. It is fairly easy to bake the bread using this machine. I baked 3 loaves of white bread using the recipe booklet. However, I felt it asked for too much salt/sugar. You might want to get a real recipe book for the bread. Because it is moderately priced, I looked past its plastic body. I would have preferred steel body. But you can't have everything. Another thing I noticed was that after the bread cools, it became a lot harder. Maybe I need to experiment with my ingredients. As another reviewer mentioned, its LCD screen is difficult to read! I had trouble in the beginning. Overall, this is just an OK breadmaker.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Days

Strengths: Economically priced, makes a loaf of bread in under 1 hour, has 8 cycle options, makes three different sizes of loaves (1, 1.5, or 2 lb), has a horizontal pan, comes with a booklet full of recipes.

Weaknesses: The display area is yellow with white lettering which makes it a little tricky to read in bad lighting.

Summary: I purchased this breadmaker to replace my 8 year old Welbilt unit that got knocked off the counter and broke. I did some research online and read many favorable reviews on this machine and another one that was also value priced. I decided to check around locally too, to see what I could find. I found this little gem at Target for the price of $49.99! It's nearly identical to the one it's replacing (that one would still be going strong had we not had the mishap). It has a pretty small footprint like my old one, so it doesn't take up a huge amount of counter space ~ I really appreciate that. I also love how it makes a loaf in under one hour (58 minutes to be exact) and it was just as delicious as the loaves my old one made. I anticipate having a wonderful long term experience with this one, just make sure you keep it away from the edge of the counter!