heats up fast, makes nice espresso with good crema, big water tank, pleasing design, durable construction. Spiffy early 80‘s demonstration video.
Negative Product Points
uses up steam power very quickly, surprisingly flimsy portafilter construction (stands out on a solid machine.)
Detailed Commentary
I went ‘round and ‘round about buying an espresso machine for my love (and our household). The cheap machines looked like they‘d last about a week and the expensive...$600 bucks for a coffee maker? After reading the reviews here and looking all over the web, this model strikes me as the Chevy Impala (the old model) of the espresso world: inexpensive, durable, a little homely, but does the job. And so far, it has impressed me with the quality of coffee-- better than any local cafe. I am worried about the amount of steam it makes (very little, and slowly at that) but I am used to using the big commercial machines, so I‘m not sure that‘s really a negative.
More striking is the totally cheap portafilter; I feel like I‘m going to snap it off at any point. (like the cheap upholstery of an Impala).
Water reservoir is enormous, steam arm is adequate.
I recommend this machine to Impala drivers everywhere.
