Nespresso GCA1-US-BK-NE VertuoLine Coffee and Espresso Maker, Black (Discontinued Model)

Catch it at half off and you will love it.
For 150$ I wish I had bought 2 as I gave this away for a gift. It makes better coffee than its competitors. At a buck a pod its a bit pricy but cheaper than Starbs or Timmies. The build quality of the machine is nice. I love how it dumps the used pods so I don’t have to burn my fingers digging it out like I do on my Keurig when I make multiple cups in sequence.

This is a great little machine
This is a great little machine. Makes both coffee and espresso. Make you buy vertuoline capsules, not the other ones. The packages comes with a little sampler set which is great. The aerocchino machine is also pretty amazing. Whips up frothed milk in seconds which allows you to make a fancy cappuccino

Behaving strangely
Edited: (Corrected a typing mistake: Ordered from Nespresso Canada website (not Amazon) because it was on sale. First of all they were listing this even though it was a DISCONTINUED model. My main issue with it is that the temperature of the espresso blend comes out luke warm. (I have an original model that is better in this respect.) Next it behaves inconsistently. Sometimes the dispensed amounts are inconsistent. I tried doing a factory reset and the instructions indicate a certain blink code. It is not what it should be and I tried several times. I think my machine is POSSESSED and I do not recommend it.

Excellent machines
The coffee from this machine is high quality and the number of coffee and espressos is an asset. I have no complaints with the supplier who got delivered it here one day before it was suppose to arrive.

all very good

We are VERY HAPPY with this coffee maker. First of all, let me explain how I decided to buy this machine. I asked a friend who is in the restaurant business, and who had recently done a vendor tour of Italy, what he thought of the Nespresso machines. He told me that Italy is mad about espresso, that you can get an excellent espresso anywhere in Italy, that even gas station attendants will pull you the perfect shot ofespresso. But when he asked his Italian friends what they drink at home, they say, “Nespresso.” That cinched the deal for me. I ordered this machine the same day, and have not for one minute regretted our decision. My husband the coffee drinker has gone from drinking one cup of coffee a day to two, and I, the tea drinker, has been persuaded to start drinking coffee, because it is so easy to brew a cup, and it is so good!PROSThis machine brews both coffee and espresso. This is important because older models only did long or short shots of espresso, and if you wanted a cup of coffee you were out of luck.The Nespresso brand of coffee capsules are very high quality and the taste is very good.Capsules are easy to buy online through the Nespresso website. Skip the third party vendors, just go straight to Nespresso.Capsules can be RECYCLED. This is huge for me because K-cups are killing our planet. You can bring them back to a vendor like a kitchen store like Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma, or mail it in.Machine is slim and does not take too much space.Easy to use, brews a cup of coffee in seconds with perfect crema on top.CONSCapsules have to be purchased online (with shipping charge) and there are very few retail stores that carry capsules.Capsules are bulky (esp the coffee ones) and take up a lot of space. There is just no good way of storing the things.Capsules are expensive. This is not a good machine for someone who drinks a pot of coffee a day, but perfect for someone who only wants one or two cups.The water container on the side is tricky to take out to refill, especially if you have your machine pushed up against a cabinet wall. It is also hard to tell if the container is empty as there is no indicator, and the ridges on the container make it hard to tell how much water is inside. You only know its empty when you try to make a cup of coffee and the machine makes a funny noise but doesn’t work. But here’s the problem. If at that point you stop and add water, you can’t just turn it on again. It makes you put in a new capsule ($$$).The top where you put the capsule in is hard to lock. It takes force to close and lock it. A few times I didn’t push it hard enough and didn’t lock it completely, and the top bounced open, releasing the already punctured but not used capsule, which then is tossed by the machine into the trash compartment. You can’t reuse it, at least I haven’t figured out how, I tried and somehow it didn’t work. So when you lock the top, you have to do it with conviction.One very important note: You don’t need to buy the Nespresso brand frother! The steam of the coffee coming out slightly froths the milk already, and frothing it further is overkill. When we make coffee, we put a little milk in a mug, and zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then we brew coffee in the espresso, and the steam coming out with the coffee froths up the already warm milk. (Heating up the milk beforehand also solves the problem that people have noted that their coffee was too cold. I’ve never found the coffee to be cold but I can imagine some like super hot coffee.) A few times my husband frothed the milk with a frother and when the coffee went into the cup, it made everything TOO foamy. The only exception would be if you wanted to make fancy espresso drinks, in which case you can buy a cheap frother for $15. I have the Aerolatte frother and it is small and handy and works great, and is MUCH cheaper than the Nespresso one.All in all, a great machine, and we are glad we bought it.