Loved it. Trying to get work to by one now that I don't work at home.
Positive Product Points
Easy to learn and use. Pretty easy to clean and maintain. Quality of espresso is great. Easy enough to use that a non-coffee-phile can handle it.
Negative Product Points
If you have to open it, getting it back together is a bit of a pain. The timer flakes occasionally for no observable reason. Running the two boilers at the same time is supposed to be done only on a 20A circuit, but I fudged and only had one case where I tripped the 15A breaker. Did have a fairly common problem with the flow meter getting clogged early on. Easy to clean and fix with help from Chris Coffee and s1cafe. A bit difficult to ship; the pressure meters got pulled out of place which is pretty common but not too hard to get back in place.
Detailed Commentary
I had a super-auto that finally gave up the ghost (and the result wasn't too good anyway). I did a ton a research and settled on the VII and haven't looked back. The result is better than anything I've ever had without being difficult to use. I had originally thought having a seperate grinder etc. would make the process too difficult for the first shot in the morning but since the quality of all the superautos I looked at was so bad, I finally gave in. I wanted the double boiler (too many bad experiences with machines having to heat up/cool down) and I was hoping not to have the result too dependent on my ability (or lack there of) to temperature surf. The result has been everything I dreamed up.
A very active and supportive community at s1cafe.com was a big selling point for me. Lots of people with years of experience on the ins and outs.
Buying Experience
Bought from Chris, since they have a lock on the VII and the VI doesn't have a timer. The process was simple. There's always an issue with shipping these and when I got it, one of the cables had come loose. They helped diagnose and fix immediately ... on a weekend, if memory serves.
