Great value for the money, quick warmup, powerful pump, consistent quality once you dial in the proper grind. The grinder IS adjustable contrary to what another reviewer here wrote
Negative Product Points
Grinder is messy, placement of switches is not ideal, loose plastic lids for grinder and water reservoir are a bit cheap.
Detailed Commentary
My Paros adventure started on a positive note. Machine worked well out of the box and I was happy. For a week. Then the brew function started to work intermittently. Some background: the Gaggia Paros, like the Coffee and Tebe, uses a solenoid valve to route water from the pump to the boiler. If the solenoid goes bad that valve will not open and water will simply recirculate back into the reservoir when you attempt to brew. So then, after disassembling/re-assembling the machine about six times and checking every single component I traced the problem to the coil on the solenoid. The good thing about this machine is that the design is very basic and was easy for me to troubleshoot. After replacing the coil with one from a used Gaggia for $10, the machine is working like new. I hope for Gaggia's sake that the problem with my solenoid was a fluke. One last note; This may be nit-picky but I'm not wild about the switches for this machine being on the top. If your hands are wet from cleaning the filter & basket, the potential for water to drip down into the electrics exists. Probably a non-issue but front mounted rocker switches would have been better.
Buying Experience
I give very high marks to best-of-italy.com They were very quick to reimburse me for the cost of a new relay for the machine. U.S.A. buyers be aware that when you order from them, you will pay a small import tax from the shipper.
