If Starbucks has this on sale for $90 or less, and the often do, it is the best grinder for the price.
Positive Product Points
Conical burrs! Almost no static! Nifty design! Good bean hopper size! Well built!
Negative Product Points
Not enough range in the grind selections... it is capable of producing a turkish grind OR a super huge press pot grind, IF you void your warranty and IF you modify it's grind range up or down. But if you modify up for coarser grinds, you lose the espresso grinds, and vice versa. Noisy bugger (but I'm used to the whisper quiet motor of the Rocky)
Detailed Commentary
Bought as the first grinder for my Rancilio Silvia for $89CDN from Starbucks (and unbelievable price, it normally sells for $175CDN at Starbies). When I bought my Rocky grinder, I kept the Starbucks Barista as my "other" grinder for coffee, press pot and vac pot brewing.
Good little package. Obviously a different target market than that of the Rancilio Rocky, but probably the best in it's class. Features conical burrs (which look exactly the same as those found on the Bodum Antigua grinder - hrmmmmm) very tight design (the grinds catcher is so perfectly fit to it's chamber that you feel air resistance when you slide it in).
My Starbies Barista grinder was about a half to a full click away from doing a perfect grind for my Miss Silvia espresso machine - so I had to tamp the hell out of it, over 50lbs of pressure. I've since learned that the Solis branded version of this grinder is now tweaked for a better grind for espresso by the importer, so I imagine the new models will be fine for most home espresso machines. Keep in mind, though it was a bit coarse for my Silvia, it absolutely choked the pump on my Krups Novo Compact espresso machine, so for most home espresso machines, the Solis / Starbies grinder should be fine. I heard it works great with the Starbucks Barista line of espresso machines.
Grinds are uniformly even, with very little powder - thank the conical burrs for that. The machine is a bit noisy, but this is compared to the Rocky, which you'd be hard pressed to tell if it was even on when there's no beans being ground (ie, the motor sound from the Rocky sans beans is hard to detect - but you can distinctly hear the loud, high pitched whine of the Starbucks grinder when it has no beans).
Overall, I'd say this is probably the best grinder you could get for $100 or less, and a good grinder for $125 (it's normal price). At $125, I'd probably rather get the Saeco MC2002.
