Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this machine on a special half-price deal from Amazon. I thought I would use it only a short time while my $2K DeLonghi coffee machine was being repaired. It took 6 months for the repair (DeLonghi is slow to send parts for discontinued machines). The Essenza probably gets used 10 times a day in our house. It warms up fast and quickly makes a great shot of espresso with outstanding crema (if you use good quality coffee). I read some of the negative reviews and haven't experienced any of the issues they highlight. The quality of the machine construction is good (remember I only paid $60 for it - so my expectations weren't high but they were greatly exceeded). It gets used a lot and the last coffee I made with it is as good as the first one I made with the machine. It doesn't require as much "care and feeding" as my big coffee machine. You put water in it, put in a capsule, press a button and you get a good cup of coffee. In all honesty, I like the coffee from the Essenza better than the coffee from the DeLonghi, primarily due to the fact that the Essenza produces a "hotter" cup of coffee. I run the DeLonghi on its highest temperature setting and I still find the coffee from it a little too tepid for my taste. My only real complaint is the cost of the capsules... Nespresso took a page from the "computer printer" playbook. The machines are cheap but the ink cartridges aren't. Fortunately I found that a "well-known" Italian coffee company makes a compatible capsule that cost about 30% less. I tried some of the other compatible capsules on the market and sold by Amazon but L's are the best. Now that I have my mega-buck DeLonghi back (I shouldn't dump on it so much, I like it a lot but its a complicated machine and it did get a lot of use for 3 years before a circuit board went out) I will probably reserve the Essenza for making some of the interesting specialty coffees that Nespresso markets, like the African and Cuban varieties... those are really good btw.