I have doubts in any coffee machine made by breville, black and decker, russel hobbs, sunbeam or anything else usually found at k-mart or target, next to the irons and toasters of the same brand.
i own a francis francis x-1, fully manual, solid as the preverbial brick thunderbox, and has done me very well for the last 8 years with minimal to no servicing. if i had my chance again i'd go for a La Cimbali Junior - these things go for like 30 years without even flinching (try to get 30 years of your plastic fantastic steam driven breville!). i'd also love an E61 rocket, definitely the sexiest machine out there, but haven't heard much about their durability.

I've heard the new Sunbeam machine endorsed by the Australian former World Barista Champion, Paul Bassett, can actually make a decent espresso... But then if someone was paying me a bucket load of cash to endorse a product, im sure i'd pretend it was good too.

That being said... when my next round of upgrade fever hits, i'll be looking seriously at getting the Pasquini Livia 90...I'm guessing by E61 Giotto, you mean ECM Giotto Classic... A nice machine indeed.

But then if i could choose anything, it would be a 1 group La Marzocco Linea, or the 1 group Synesso Cyncra... possibly the best new machine to come out in a long time... check out http://www.synesso.com/photos.shtml ...

I guess i can always dream :)

AG - the E61 Rocket must go under 2 names, they appear identical

Yeh, looks like its a kiwi thing... the only sites i saw pointing to them were all from New Zealand... which might explain a few things :)

Hrmm, i see this page has been linked from the front section... So i'd better update it with some new content.

My latest machine to get is the Expobar Minore aka Brewtus II.

This machine has the works... It's a dual boiler (thats right, one for the grouphead, and one for steam) PID controlled (you can specify the exact temperature coming out of both boilers), with an E61 grouphead (the classic actively heated hunk of brass developed by Faema in 1961 for thermal stability when pulling shots, that still works great today).

It will set you back a bit at around $2200... but it will last a lifetime.

I should also add that when buying an espresso machine, the grinder is as important (if not more important) than the espresso machine itself. Without a grinder that can give you consistent finely ground coffee, without heating it up too much... you will never get the best possible out of your espresso machine. Buying pre-ground coffee is simply a no-no, it will never be matched exactly to fit your machine, and ground coffee goes stale so quickly that its likely to be stale before you can use it all.

Spend some money on a decent grinder straight up and it will be guaranteed to outlive all your espresso machines. The best machines use conical burrs, then flat burrs, then blades (which should be avoided completely).

Top of the line for the home is the awesome Mazzer Mini... Rancilio Rocky is also great, and i've heard favourable comments about the Solis Maestro and Innova Lux Ibertal.

Phew! I am serious about my coffee and would prefer a cup of hot water to instant, and I am grieving the death of my second coffee machine in less than four years(a krups). However, here I am clearly out of my league!

I love my coffee! I bought a Sunbeam manual machine about 4 years ago. Expensive at the time but the price has reduced dramatically. This time last year i decided it was time to upgrade to a fully automatic machine to my husbands horror. We looked around for a while, and could not get any information at all out of sales people.

In the end we were in domayne and there was a woman there who was a sales rep for Saeco. She was fantastic. She showed us inside, she explained how it worked and she even made us a cup of coffee!

We were hooked. IT WAS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF OUR LIVES! We had so much trouble with it. We had to take it back to Saeco four times in four months because it was faulty. We had the manager come out to our house one more time, because we would not drive all the way back to the service centre. When asked why we had so much trouble with this fully automatic machine when we had absolutely no trouble with a little sunbeam...

"Well, you have to expect that it's going to have more trouble because it has more parts that can break."

What a pathetic answer! For $1500 you would think that they would make one with parts that don't break!

We have not had any trouble since then, but my lesson to anyone out there: DO NOT BUY SAECO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE! [Especially considering that we were not the only ones at the service centre wondering why our expensive machines were so prone to problems]

My former boss had the same problem with her SAECO machine, i think they went thru 4 machines til they got one that worked. ZBut i must say it is the easiest thing to 'fly' It performed brilliantly at a recent baby shower. But it does get tempremental aropund cleaning time. But i say again, very easy to use when it is working! Makes me the best milk frother in the world!

Regarding machines the new Sunbeam EM 6900 is certainly the best in its price bracket. It is not only endorsed by 2003 World Champion Barista Paul Bassett but also was designed in consultation with him, based on commercial espresso machine principles. It has a commercial grade portafilter, triple baskets as standard and can both extract shots and steam milk at the same time. For $599 no other machine comes close to these features. And if you team the machine up with the new Sunbeam conical burr grinder ($200) them you can pull extractions at such a level that you will really only be limited ny operator technique. But sure, if you want the absolute best, forget E61 (this is actually 45yr old technology) just get a one group Synesso Cyncra ($8000) and a Mazzer Robur ($2700) then you too can be just like Mr Bassett :)

Corey

just came across this interesting one today (ht matt bronlewee: http://www.infuzemag.com/staff/matt/archives/2006/01/tassimo.html)

It's called a Tassimo (I know it's not a REAL coffee machine), and it does everything from coffee to hot chocolate to tea even!

I think that moments of revelation are sweet in their nature and dramatic in the outcome. So, having become olfactorily enlightened after putting to use my new Sunbeam EM 6900 espresso machine I find I have gone from a Philistine, Farmer’s Union man, to coffee snob in eight short weeks.

Pulling deep rich red shots of espresso, having ground to order freshly roasted beans, and infusing with silky smooth (non homogenised) milk has become a source of delight and satisfaction.

I can now tell a good cup (Perfect Cup) to and average cup (Cibo) to a perfectly rancid cup (Gloria Jeans), yet (and this is without bias) I can still produce a better cup than them all at home. I have new friends, people who drop in at funny hours for a “coffee”. The house smells of toast and my wife and eldest daughter display a distinctively Pavlovian response when the machine grinds into gear.

Yes, revelation, like perfect espresso, is sweet.