Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read all the positive reviews, and after using this unit I can only say that those giving the Omega 8005 a positive rating must have either very low standards or nothing better with which to compare. I have a Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite, arguably the pinnacle of consumer-level juicers. This thing is fast, easy to clean, and exceptionally well designed from a usability standpoint. The industrial design is tremendous, and everything is sized perfectly and makes sense. The Omega 8005, unfortunately, doesn't compare. It's feed tube is so incredibly small that you can only feed a single stem of kale at a time, or risk jamming the tube. The Omega 8005 is absolutely useless to juice anything other than grass or simple greens because of its inability to handle a decent quantity at one time. Even the tray that sits atop the feed chute is shallow, narrow, and utterly useless because whatever you put into it quickly falls out. It takes me a good 10-15 min. to juice two bunches of parsley and one bunch of kale, excluding clean-up, simply because you have to cautiously feed each item or risk a jam. The amount of juice produced is under 4 oz., enough green juice for one person. If I had to spend 10-15 min. juicing for each person (not including cleanup) in my household, that's a good 45 min. of juicing time plus cleanup. Although the Breville isn't particularly adept at juicing leafy greens, it can produce 8 oz. of juice in under 10 seconds from items such as carrots, apples, oranges, pineapples, tomatoes, grapefruits, etc. Such items make absolutely no sense to juice in the Omega 8005 because it would take an inordinate amount of time to chop everything up into the small 1 inch squares that are required to fit through the feed chute. When the feed chute jamps (quite often), the supplied plunger is inadequate to exert enough leverage to force the produce down the chute. When you do exert force, the entire juicer tips unless you use both hands -- one to force the produce down, the other to physically hold the juicer down. Cleanup is a big chore. The Breville has large, easy parts to rinse, but the Omega 8005 has easily double the number of parts that require cleaning. The parts are smaller, with a lot more nooks and crannies requiring attention. Photos of the Omega 8005 show a single container underneath the juicer to catch both juice and pulp, which is ridiculous. The container provided is not large enough to properly catch pulp, unless you enjoy having pulp all over your counter. Contrary to the representations made on the packaging and in the instructions, you need to use two containers: one for the juice and the other for the pulp. This machine contains a multitude of design flaws that are further exacerbated by undersized parts which inhibit usability and functionality. It seems to produce slightly more juice from greens than the Breville, although not by a quantity significant enough to mitigate the amount of time and frustration spent in using this underpowered, undersized, and badly designed machine. Juice is very thick and pulpy, with small pepper-sized pieces of the original vegetable present in the juice. Very annoying, especially since none of this is an issue with the Breville. You will read people claiming that juice from the Omega 8005 is healthier because it has less froth and is not subject to the "warming" of a centrifugal design, thereby retaining more of its nutrients. This could not be farther from the truth. The Omega 8005's single impellar produced plenty of heat from friction, and juice comes out substantially warmed from its cold refrigerator state. I have noticed no such warming in the Breville 800JEXL, and can't help but believe that users of the Omega 8005 once again are deluding themselves into believing marketing hype that simply isn't true (i.e., it's a big lie). As far as froth is concerned, yes, the Omega 8005 produces far less froth -- but at the expense of a pulpier juice with pepper-sized gritty fragments of vegetable in it. Given the choice, I'll take the cleaner juice with the froth and just skim off the froth. I did not purchase from Amazon, but from another store that had a better price. I wish I had bought from Amazon, as I could probably return the thing now that I've discovered its many flaws. I can't imagine anybody using this to juice anything of any substance -- it would take just too darn long. In short: don't buy this machine. Unless you specifically need to juice greens for the maximum amount of extraction and are willing to put up with a badly designed unit, pass this one up and go for the gold: the Breville 800JEXL. You won't regret it. *** UPDATED 11/13/11 *** Five years later my Breville 800JEXL is still going strong! All original equipment, nothing has broken or cracked. Juicing basket and blade are still sharp and work like they did on Day #1. Some people have responded to my original review claiming that masticating juicers such as the Omega 8005 produce a higher quality of juice because there is no heating of the juice by a blade and spinning basket. I refrigerate all of my fruits and vegetables prior to juicing, and after running them through the Breville the juice hitting the pitcher is COLD. There is none of this "heating" of the juice. It takes literally 5 minutes to juice 24 ounces of "mean green" juice as popularized in the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". Guess what juicer they used in that film? It takes over 20 minutes to produce the same amount of juice in the Omega, including the time it takes to cut all of your produce into small 1/2 inch pieces. By the time you are done juicing in the Omega, the juice has reached room temperature from sitting while the juice coming out of the Breville is still cold when you drink it. Again, which one loses more nutritional value due to temperature rise in the juice? Since I posted a negative review of the Omega, several people have called me a corporate "shill" and one person even said that I have way too much time on my hands for writing an in-depth, detailed review. I'm constantly surprised by the hateful and mean things people say when you express an opinion that is different from theirs. To those people I can only say this - don't take my review so personally. It's just a juicer! :)