SAVE YOUR $$, BUY SOMETHING ELSE !
Written: Mar 01 '09
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Ease of Cleaning: |
|
|
| Style: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Attractive, nicely designed, clock keeps accurate time, carafe pours cleanly, programmable, pour interrupt
Cons: Brews very weak coffee, coffee not HOT, reusable lifetime filter worthless
The Bottom Line: See this unit and run like the wind from it ! One star only because you can't give it zero stars ! AVOID IT ! Brews horrible coffee !
|
|
|
| erthmun's Full Review: GE 12-Cup Digital Coffee Maker - 169164 |
First off, let me say that I LIVE for coffee. I always spent my hard earned $$ on great quality imports (because taste does matter). I invested in Kenyan AA and was overwhelmed by Jamaican Blue Mountain (as well as the cost, LOL), Ethiopian, Kona from Hawaii, and Peruvian just to name a few. I love my coffee. When my cats knocked my empty carafe off my stove and broke it I was dismayed and found it impossible to find a replacement carafe for my maker.
I knew I had to find a replacement coffee maker quick, after all, a week of doing the corporate convenience store coffee was starting to get to me ! I stopped at my local Walmart and saw this attractive GE coffee maker for the right price. I thought, GE, they have a fairly good name for a number of products, lets give them a try......my mistake.
I fly home eager to give my new coffee maker its "trial by fire" (I was in severe coffee withdrawl). I read the manual, (yes, I'm a guy who reads the manuals to EVERYTHING ! - my father was an engineer and I ended up being a High Tech Equipment & Machinery repair specialist, so I know the value of manuals) !
I hand washed the parts that need washing and rinsing, dried them off and proceeded to start putting scoops of coffee in the permanent filter. Hmmmmmm, how much........okay, well, my old coffee maker needed 4 scoops for 10 cups of coffee. This is a 12 cup coffee maker, lets try 5 heaping scoops to be safe (after all, it can't be too strong, LOL)
Well, after brewing I sat down to the most tasteless cup of coffee I had ever had in my life. It was more like someone had accidently spilled a little coffee in some mildly hot water. Coffee gets tossed down the drain (a sin), parts get washed and rinsed again, and I proceed to brew another, hopefully stronger, pot of coffee. Out comes the manual again........just in case I had missed something.
Nope, missed nothing, but this time I decided to set the Brew Strength setting for 4 cups at strong. I also used 6 heaping scoops of coffee, just in case. And I waited......ahhhhh, the sound of coffee brewing down into the carafe.....Done ! I poured a cup and was once again treated to tasteless and mildly hot coffee. Pour the rest of the pot down the drain.... Heavy sigh .......and then severe depression set in.....
Back to the "old drawing board". Wash everything, rinse everything, dry everything and start again. Mind you now, this is the third pot of coffee I'm going to brew today of very expensive coffee. Not those big tubs of popular coffee like Max & Folg, but those lovely 8 oz. bags that cost the same as 28 ozs. of the aforementioned.
As stated before, it can't be too strong so I decided to use 12 scoops of this premium coffee and reset the brew strength for 1 to 4 cups at strong. I also added a disposable melita coffee filter (that I had left over from my old coffee maker) inside the lifetime filter (sometimes you just have to improvise with things) thinking that if the water can stay inside the filters for a longer period of time, the strength of the coffee taste should be stronger (sometimes you just have to improvise with things), duhhhhhhhhh.
Well, I waited and finally the end product was done brewing ! I poured myself a cup and.....once again.....the taste of the coffee was only mildly improved.......I decided that I wasn't going to chance wasting any more coffee so I chanced to live with it. I ended up having to switch my brand of coffee because the heavy usage of this expensive coffee was killing me !
I did this for a month with little tweeks here and there to improve the strength of the coffee, but to no avail. I decided to look for another coffee maker.
Save your $$ people, there is NO cure for this over priced decoration ! I decided to buy a little Sunbeam 10 cup coffee maker from Walgreens as a stand in until I could find a "real" coffee maker and was absolutely amazed at the taste and heat quality this little unit gave me ! Only 4 scoops of coffee to 10 cups of coffee ! Nice and hot ! I dread the day it breaks, it'll be hard to replace !
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 30.00
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
erthmun
|
|
Location: Myrtle Beach, SC USA
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.