So, this is *not* an expensive or high-end burr grinder - I get that, and you should too. The price this normally sells at - about 100 bucks - is pretty much the entry point for a decent grinder, not the top. There are better grinders out there, for a higher price. But if you're like me, coming from either no grinder (just buying pre-ground coffee) or a "does the job" blade/spice grinder that you've decided to use for coffee beans, even an entry level electric burr grinder like this is going to be a game-changer for your coffee quality. Previously I was in the latter camp in my example above and using a spice grinder, one of those ones with the swinging blades that chops rather than grinds. And it was ok, but there is no real way to get consistent results from that kind of grinder. One second it's a coarse grind; hit it for another second and now it's super-fine. The grounds themselves were also inconsistent; some more coarse than others. Still, it worked ok for as long as my wife and I used it, but then one day it just broke, spectacularly. Shards of plastic everywhere. So we bought this after reading various buying guides about the best entry-level coffee grinder. In the interim I had bought a manual burr grinder, and it actually worked really well in getting an even grind but it was a lot of physical labor. It wasn't something we wanted to do every time we just wanted a single cup of coffee. (And you do want to grind your coffee right before making it; it goes stale pretty much immediately if you don't. That's also why you don't want to buy pre-ground if you care about quality.) I knew we wanted a burr grinder because they actually grind the beans rather than slicing them. A spice grinder can just never get you consistent results even if you time your "grind"; a burr grinder (theoretically) can, because all the grounds end up having to go through the same size space between the burrs. This grinder lets you set both the coarseness of the grind and the time. I'd never had a grinder like this before so it took me a couple days to figure this out, but it actually grinds at a constant rate regardless of your coarseness setting (remember, I had come from a blade-style spice grinder, where a longer time meant finer coffee) and the timing adjustment just adjusts the amount of ground coffee you get. Once I did "get it", it became ridiculously easy to dial in settings that gave me the perfect cup of coffee given my brewing method (pour-over). If you're wondering, for a pour-over my recommendations are a coarseness setting of 7 and 10 seconds of grinding. My wife uses a coarseness setting of 11 for her French press. It's great to just have this thing sitting there with coffee ready to go, and just press the "grind" button and in ten seconds have enough ground coffee for one cup. I've actually made a lot more coffee since buying this since I don't have to think about weighing or timing anything. Cleaning is also easier - it's really just rinsing out the cup and its cover. Every once in a while you can brush out the burrs, but you're actually not even supposed to take them fully apart, and you don't really need to clean them at all unless you're paranoid or you're changing coffee and you absolutely don't want to taste any of the previous coffee you've ground at all. I honestly don't know how you'd even be able to tell with that small amount left in the burrs, though. So, all that's good. It's a great little machine, also well built, and worthy of five stars given the price. But yes, there are things it's not perfect at that higher priced machines do better. The biggest one for me is probably just the consistency of the grind. It actually grinds *really* fast - maybe too fast for its own good. The grounds come out a little bit inconsistent. They're "consistently inconsistent", if that makes sense - on a setting of 7, for example, you're going to get some grounds that are more like a 5 and some that are more like a 9. And you're going to get that every time, in the same proportions. Set it to 9 and you'll get some grounds that are a 7 and some that are an 11, again in the same proportions each time. So it's predictable, but just not as even as I'd ideally like, and this is one of the things you're paying for if you buy a more expensive grinder. Buy a $300 grinder and with a setting of 7, all your individual grounds should be a 7. It's also a bit loud when it's running, but it's only for about ten seconds or so, so who really cares? I don't, but just thought I'd mention it. If you're waking up at 5AM and your kitchen is just outside your bedroom, you may wake up your S.O. if you decide to grind coffee. Overall it's definitely worth it over an unpredictable blade/spice grinder that doesn't have any storage for your beans anyway. This grinder is both convenient and takes the thought out of grinding coffee, and the coffee it ends up making is really good. Given how easy it is to use, it makes it a lot more likely that you'll be making good coffee a lot more often. I'm glad I bought it.
