Making a single coffee takes far too long, and the milk frother rarely works properly — water consistently comes out before the steam, which ruins the milk. Overall, the product feels very poorly designed and disengaging to use. It’s impossible to make two coffees and enjoy them together, as the machine takes too long to be ready for the second cup. Based on my experience, some of the positive reviews are questionable, as they don’t reflect the performance I encountered.

Where to start? I've worked as a barista for 10 years and work at a coffee roaster, so I'm always using freshly roasted and ground specialty medium roasted single origins. Normally I make pourovers but decided to try espresso at home. I've spent weeks trying to dial this machine in to find a good recipe and finally settled on something either like a 1.5 ristretto or a lungo shot. The two shot basket only holds 14g MAX even though the 2 cup button dispenses 60ml of water? The pressurised basket is standard, I get that, but there's no options for bottomless or bigger baskets out there for this machine. None of the 51-52mm grouphandles I purchased ever fit. And get this, the shot volumes are automatic with no way of reprogramming them. Huh? Sunbeam are forcing me to create a bad shot every time with absolutely no options for customisation (half the fun of espresso). If you drink long blacks or have no sugar in your coffee - DON'T BUY THIS. The shot you get will be borderline undrinkable without sugar, milk or chocolate to mask your poor ruined coffee. I feel Sunbeam has taken me for a fool, even the instructional video mentions NO recipe for weighing out the correct amount of beans. I know it's a cheap machine but it's all manual, and customisation/ dialling in is the whole point of a manual machine. For a similar price just buy the Delongi Dedica. There are mountains of aftermarket products for it, the volumes are reprogrammable and there is much more information on how to create a good brew.

A great little machine for making 1 or 2 daily coffees. It froths just as well as my previous more expensive machine. Can be a bit light in weight as you hook the arm in, so you just need to hold it carefully. I also worked out that initially I was tamping the coffee too hard and the flow wasn't working. I love the very smooth action lever to move it on and off the frothing control.