Great coffee and easy to use, but unreliable machine makes it not worth the trouble
Positive Product Points
Beautiful product, easy to use. Drawer for coffee drips is easy to remove and clean. Water heats up for steam quickly. With the illy PODS makes a great cup of espresso.
Negative Product Points
RELIABILITY. A model at this price should not have to been sent back for repair twice in two years.
Detailed Commentary
It arrived with a broken bar on the cup rack. Not enough to worry about. Then after six months the thermometer quit. Still not enough to send it for repair. Then it started leaking water from the filter. Time to repair. Got it back in March 2011, and here we are on it's annual breakage anniversary (Feb 2012) and I'm sending it back again because the pump is making sucking noises and it's not producing much coffee. Probably a broken seal or something like that.
I was particularly disappointed because my X5 model was even more unreliable and after its 2nd or 3rd repair I sold it and "upgraded" to the X1, hoping for greater reliability. Apparently the X1 can overheat easily because it runs the heater even if the interior reservoir is not full. The X5 avoids this problem electronically and to its credit, overheating has not been the problem on this model.
Buying Experience
Bought it from Illy with the coffee subscription. They make it very easy.
