Gaggia 90500 Titanium Super Automatic Espresso Machine, Silver

Paid $719 for this worthless piece of metal - I purchased it through Amazon from Whole Latte Love. It has never worked properly from day one. I've sent it back for "warranty repairs" but still doesn't work. To add insult to injury, Whole Latte Love REFUSES to allow me to return it for a refund. So not only is this machine a piece of crap, Whole Latte Love does not stand behind the products they distribute.Do not buy a Gaggia espresso machine, and do not buy anything from Whole Latte Love!

We went into the search for an espresso machine because we determined we were spending way too much money at Starbucks. Also, being the fairly lazy people we are, we wanted to minimize the amount of skill and effort we put into making espressos. Therefore, the super automatic was the logical choice. After a fair amount of research, we settled on the Gaggia 90500. We have not been disappointed. We have now had this machine for over 60 days with extensive use and are fully satisfied. It creates wonderful coffee, great espresso, and enables us to indulge in truly excellent latte's. Given our usage and the amount of money we were spending on Starbucks, the machine has now paid for itself and we are in "bonus land". Time will tell if it holds up for months and years, but we have really used it heavily (12 - 15 cups per day) and it has worked great.Update 12/26/2012 - it has now been 9 months that we've been using the Gaggia 90500 and it is still going great. We average 10 cups of coffee a day out of this machine and it works as well as when new. Most of the time, the cups are just coffee using the large coffee option. However, about 20% of the time we use the small cup option which is just a shot of espresso -- mostly do a double -- and then use the steamer to complete the latte. Add some dark chocolate mocha syrup and it is truly wonderful. The only maintenance that we do is descaling whenever the indicator comes up. That takes about an hour to complete, so generally do that in the evening when the coffee consumption is done for the day!Bottom Line - if the machine were to break tomorrow, I would order a replacement immediately and then think about either fixing this or recycling -- it has just been a great coffee making machine!

I keep expecting the machine to die and it just keeps going. We do almost no maintenance on it, one of our employees broke the door so we Gerry-rigged a hinge. Other than that, we have done nothing. We are now on 11,000 cups ($0.06 per cup). Even with high-quality coffee (we use Lavazza Super Crema) it is less than half the cost of the single-serve coffee, avoids the k-cup environmental disaster, and the coffee quality is excellent.It is sensitive to the bean you use. High oil beans like starbucks will clog the grinder trap door after ~200-400 cups. This is not a problem to fix, you just need to go onto You Tube and watch the very good step-by-step instructions for cleaning the grinder. This takes a bit of mechanical aptitude and about 30 minutes. So if you just have to drink high oil beans just be ready to do this cleaning every few months. If you use low oil beans it will go a year between major cleanings.Of course, YMMV but we are extremely happy with how this has performed.

We had such high hopes for this very expensive machine. The first one that arrived did not work at all. We sent it back and got another. The next one worked for for a year or more. Amazing coffee. Then the LED readout went crazy. We replaced it. It worked terrific for a few months adn went crazy again. It is now in the shop. The mother-board may be shot.Do not buy this machine, though I understand it is no longer made. Still avoid it and consider avoiding this brand.We are now moving to a $49 Bella. It may be that the tech is not yet up to where it needs to be with these expensive machines.

The flaws of this machine make me wonder what has happened to the former excellence of Italian design. Here are a few:1. The exterior of the machine mixes metal with molded plastic panels. Much of the plastic is painted to look like metal and the paint soon wears off.2. The pitch of the bean hopper is so shallow that beans frequently must be pushed down into the grinder.3. Grinder adjustment knobs are located in the hopper where they allow beans to accumulate, further impeding bean flow.4. The water reservoir lid is difficult to grasp and hard to replace after removal.5. The brew group mechanism is hard to clean and difficult to replace. Its upper filter iis plastic and not removable.6. The dreg drawer counter is not reset when drawer is emptied. This means that the machine frequently stops with a warning despite the drawer not being full.7. Various suggested user repairs fail to stop serious leaking once it has started. Dealer repair is expensive, slow and unreliable.8. The plastic swivel base is so loosely attached that the machine wobbles unsteadily.All in all, the machine comes across as extremely shoddily designed and put together. I rue the day I bought it.