Sunbeam Easy Clean Drip Filter Coffee Machine PC7800

Good coffee but flimsy design – The orange hinge has broken a second time, this time while trying to remove top lid so the upper parts can go in dishwasher. It's not really dishwasher-friendly. The lid is very hard to get off without breakage and the upper parts won't fit in dishwasher without removing this lid. This time I'll change brands rather than trying to get a spare part again. Show details

A good-looking benchtop option; pretty flimsy though – Being a fan of old school American style filter coffee is a bit of a challenge in Australia. In a land of Nespresso pod style machines, hunting down a good-looking filter coffee maker is a task and a half; there just aren’t many options. Concurrently, America seems to have a sea of the things in every colour, with every feature and at every price… Read more

point: if only you could buy one without the hassle of a voltage converter.

So, when I stumbled across this Sunbeam in our local Kitchen Warehouse I was thrilled. It looked modern on the benchtop, has the timer and (drumroll, drumroll!) boasted that all the bits and pieces could go through the dishwasher thus negating the hassle of cleaning out coffee crud. Sold. On the spot.

Longer term, things have been a bit hit and miss. Whilst I LOVE being able to detach the entire reservoir for cleaning and refilling, the reality is that the plastic latches on the lid really aren’t great and broke early in the piece. We are about 8 months in and the hotplate has started to degrade as well. This always happens with filter machines over time but this one seems to be going early. The reservoir has also started intermittently leaking when you fill it at the tap so that’s furiously annoying.

Unsure whether to bother trying to return it due to the above (where did the receipt go?) or just accept that it wasn’t overly pricey and looked a whole lot better than the two boxy chrome style models that Sunbeam and Breville had seemed to offer for years. At the end of the day it brews good coffee, is easy to clean, the timer is simple to operate and it has a really good keep warm period of several hours as opposed to the hour or so that many other machines we have had offered.

Simple and efficient – This is a simple machine that does what it sets out to do. The name is true to the nature of it, it is easy to clean! Out of the box it's a simple thing, remove the foam, pop in the water filter, fill it with water, add your coffee, press go. Hot Coffee starts to drip out a few seconds later. Setting the time was very easy and setting the "Brew… Read more

Later" function was just as easy.

I noticed that the coffee I usually use came out a fair bit stronger than I was used to with an Espresso Machine and an Aero Press, so I add in about 1/2 cup less than the manual recommends.

Back to BREW LATER! This is the #1 feature I was after, because I just didn't feel like making espresso's at 6am any more. So here's the simplicity of it: Add water Add coffee Set brew time Wake up to hot coffee

As a result I have a lovely aroma and a fresh hot cup of coffee waiting for me at 6am every day. All that's left to do is clean the coffee tray, rinse the pot and reload for more coffee.

The Keep Warm function keeps the Pot at a good temperature and I've not had an issue with it.

The only downside for me is the lid, it feels flimsy and it's soft. As a result it doesn't always line up properly when you close it and it needs a bit of correction. There is a water filter included and Sunbeam wants you to replace that every month. I cant imagine I'll be doing that. But at least it's not a digitally monitored filter that shuts everything down if it isn't replaced.

Overall it's a good machine, it looks pretty good, isn't huge, it's easy to operate and it makes good coffee. I'm not sure how the coffee economy is yet (will I be using more coffee than I was before to drink the same amount of Coffee) but it seems to be pretty much on par with what I'm used to.

My wife has also switched to this, from our Espresso machine so that's about 2square meters of bench space I got back. (we drink long blacks)

Incapable of making a hot coffee – I just bought the sunbeam pc7800 and am very disappointed. The coffee tastes ok but at best It makes a slightly warm coffee. Am I potentially using the wrong beans or this just a poorly designed product? I'm currently using pre-ground coffee so perhaps some better/fresh beans would improve the temperature. So far it seems incapable of making the coffee hot and there's no way to adjust the temperature. Show details