Individual heatimg elements makes it toast bread/bagel slices evenly, where conventional toasters have heating elements that operate by the classic "snake" design - heat starts at one end and has to travel through all the zig zags to the end of the element. This is problematic for even toasting, especially for 4 slotted toasters. The crumb catcher tray on this toaster is also awesome - it does a really good job at catching all those crumbly bits so they dont end up on your counter. Plus, this thing just looks a whole lot sleeker than most toaster. The only down side is that it is almost unnecessarily long. The width is normal, as is the height, but this thing is 12 inches in length. I think most toasters are in the 9 inch range or 10 at most. Thats a nitpicky detail though, as i still would buy this again and recommend it as a quality purchase.