Way better than a whirly blade. Great first burr grinder.
Positive Product Points
Solid construction in general. Upper burr very easy to remove for cleaning. Quiet (compared to my old whirly blade, anyway!). Only small amount of ground coffee in burr area after grinding, if you set the timer for a little extra time after the beans run out, and tap the grinder body a few times during the extra run time. Very low static issues under most circumstances.
Negative Product Points
Removing bean hopper to access burr area loses grind setting, though it's easy to reset. Grinding starts immediately when timer knob is rotated, as there's no separate start switch. Plastic ground coffee receptacle can get static if humidity is very low, though breathing into it before grinding helps a lot.
Detailed Commentary
This is my first burr grinder. I don't do espresso or French press yet, so I can't comment on the suitability of the grind for that, but the consistency of size is orders of magnitude better than I could ever do with my trusty whirly blade.
I use a mix of paper filters and permanent filters with my drip makers, and it does the job admirably, avoiding unwanted fines for the mesh filters, but grinding quite fine if I desire for the paper filters.
Some have commented negatively on the ground coffee that ends up left behind in the grinding chamber around the burrs. To get almost all the ground coffee from the burr area to drop into the ground coffee receptacle, follow these steps:
Load the bean hopper with only enough beans that you intend to grind, so that the hopper will run empty when you're done.
Set the timer to 1 or 2 numbers more time than you need to complete the grinding.
When the beans are all ground (you'll hear it), tap the body of the grinder a few times during the remaining time. This, combined with the light vibration of the motor turning, will cause almost all of the leftover grounds to drop.
With oily beans, the ground coffee might be stubborn, but lifting the grinder a few inches off the counter and tilting it forward during the tapping in step 3 will help.
It would be great to have some clever automatic system to sweep out 100% of the ground coffee, but for the price of this grinder, the steps above are not too onerous, and it keeps you from having to open up the grinder each time to manually brush out the leftover ground coffee.
Buying Experience
My first experience with 1st in Coffee. Very smooth ordering process, tracking info, etc. No customer service needed, so I can't comment on that.
