Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We've had this for about a month now, but it's been a month of lockdown and between us and our 3 teenagers it's probably made 400 cups of coffee/espresso/latte/cappuccino--no exaggeration, I used a calculator. There's a reason we decided to take the plunge and invest in a pricey machine like this. We went from a $130 espresso machine with a manual foamer & a Ninja drip coffee maker side by side to this guy. So I feel pretty secure in writing up some initial evaluations on this. The positives: -What pushed us over the edge on choosing this one after 3 solid days of research was the milk foaming system. No tubes for the milk to travel through means no where for it to sit and get gross. Also, once a week or so you can open the whole thing up and really clean it all out--get rid of any and all built up grounds (not that there have been many at all). You're also supposed to lubricate the pump once every 2 months I believe (my husband has that in his calendar). Many of those pieces are dishwasher safe--the milk container, the overflow and puck trash bin pieces. Love that. It feels very clean. -It felt a little overwhelming at first, but it's actually very simple to use. Really--our 8 year old makes our coffee for us happily. "Make mommy a latte please? 2 coffee and 2 foam, thanks". And our younger girls love making just foamed milk to add to tea, once we showed them the workaround for that. -Obviously, the coffee. It makes a mean latte, my cup of choice. The espresso is good, the standard cup of coffee is good, the cappuccino is yummy. You have three options for "aroma" level, coffee level, and foam level--so quite a bit of personalization--on the milk + coffee drinks. Somewhere in a neutral area here related to that I have to comment on the coffee beans--many commented that you can NOT use oily beans and this is absolutely true. They will have trouble scootching down the hopper. And oily beans are not good beans anyway :) So if you're investing in an $800 machine, do yourself a favor and don't buy oily ::coughstarbuckscough:: beans that won't work (and won't taste great). We've tried 5 different types of beans so far, some really good, some just good, some fair. We love trying different types and will keep going until we find *the one* for this machine. So I won't put that in the "cons" list. The cons: -The buttons--particularly the power button--are a little difficult to push. You have to get them in *just* the right spot for it to turn on. A touch annoying, particularly before that first cup of coffee...ironic. There was a few times I had that scared OH NO IT'S BROKEN moment before I found the sweet spot. -The lid for the milk container basically just rests lightly on the top of the milk container. No hinge or no rubber lip to keep it secure. It gets knocked off onto the kitchen tile floor about once a day (since you have to take it out of the fridge every time you want to make a cup). It's thin plastic and basically a matter of time before it gets busted. It definitely seems like for the price paid it should have been hinged or more securely seated on there. -The machine runs water out at the start and before automatically shutting off. It's a decent amount, so we keep a mug sitting there now to catch the water. The drip tray does hold quite a bit of water, but by the time it triggers the shut off to tell you that it needs to be emptied it's VERY full and you're playing quite the balancing game getting it to the sink without spilling any. So: don't turn on the machine and put your mug under--wait for the "trash water" to eject first, then put your mug under. Then when you're done, put the "trash water" mug back under to catch the clean up water. That's all I've got at the moment. Maybe month 2 will change my views, but I think the "cons" are pretty minor and all in all we're pretty dang happy with our investment.