My existing coffeemaker was still working fine, but I had gotten tired of its small capacity. (I've written about it before--it's a Miallegro 1090, and its version of "12 cups" is apparently European, and MUCH smaller than us Americans think of 12 cups!) So I decided to order a replacement. My criteria included: 1) Must have a larger capacity than the Miallegro. 2) Must have excellent reviews from existing owners. 3) Must be Prime eligible (hey, I paid for Prime, so I might as well get the 'free' 2-day shipping that comes with it). 4) Must have basic features like auto-shutoff. 5) Preferably includes a permanent filter (if it didn't, I'd purchase one myself--no need to waste paper filters). 6) Preferably includes options such as brew strength and carafe heating temperature. With all that in mind I ended up narrowing down my possible choices to a couple of Cuisinarts, the DCC-1200 and the DCC-2650. I chose the latter and I'm glad I did. I noticed that some owners didn't think the 2650 was worth the extra $20-ish over the 1200, but, among other things, I liked the fact that the 2650 has a water level view window on its side. When I ordered it two days ago, its price was $89.69; I see that it's $95.45 today; in both cases, the list price was shown as $185. I placed my order late afternoon on Sunday and, much to my surprise, it arrived on Monday. :) I put it together and ran a cleansing cycle that day, then brewed my first pot of coffee with it this morning. It was FANTASTIC! And fast! Much, much faster than the coffeemaker it replaced--and especially so when you consider its larger capacity. Something I noticed yesterday when I ran the cleaning cycle, and again today with its first actual pot of coffee, is that the amount of water you put in is the amount of coffee you get out. Not so with the Miallegro--with it, if you filled the water chamber by using the carafe filled to its 12 cup mark, after brewing you'd end up with coffee at the 10 cup mark on the carafe. With this Cuisinart, what you put in is what you get out. I like that, a lot. Although it has several fancy-schmancy features, I don't expect or plan to use many/most of them. For one thing, I've had a decades' long aversion to leaving coffeemakers plugged in, after reading/hearing about many instances of fires being started by them. I don't know and, frankly, don't care if that's still something to worry about, it's just a habit I don't plan on breaking at this point! I set the brew strength to bold and the carafe temperature to high. Since I've only brewed one pot as of right now, I don't have anything to compare them to. But I'll update this review if I use other settings and they don't function as expected. I can't say enough about the carafe and its lid. Great! The carafe is large but very comfortable to hold/pour, and its lid is easy to get on/off, allows for easy pouring because you don't need to DO anything (like press a button or hold the lid up) but pour, and the best part is it doesn't spill all over the place! NO mess at all, not even a spilled drop. Love that. So far, and I know it's only been a day, I'm very pleased with this product. I'm keeping my previous unit as a backup (anyone who's had a carafe break can surely relate), and also to use when having company over that includes a lot of coffee drinkers. We can run two pots at the same time. So it's all good. UPDATE: Now that I've had this coffeemaker for a few days I want to heap some more praise on it. GOOD GRIEF, does it ever brew quickly! Its "Extreme Brew" feature was not something I even considered when I decided on this unit, but now that I've seen it in action I love it. It does, indeed, brew MUCH faster than any other coffeemaker I've personally used. From start to finish it brews a full 12-cup pot in just about 12 minutes; the Miallegro it replaced took at least twice that long even though it had a smaller capacity. I love being able to select varying amounts of time for the unit to shut off. I didn't think I cared as long as it had a basic 2-hour shutoff, but--again--now that I have it I really like this feature. The temperature of the brewed coffee is fantastic. It's actually so much hotter than we were used to with the old unit that it's taken some time to adjust. That first sip each morning is a little dangerous--but in a good way, you know?! I keep the carafe heat setting on high, so we just need to remember that it's a lot hotter than our previous unit's coffee.
