someone will be along in the minute to extol the virtues of other more expensive machines, but I am reasonably enamoured with mine – bit clunky and noisy, buttons feel a bit cheap (and the lights in them are notorious for flickering and the switches breaking). But for £30 from ebay its a good starting point – the combination of it with an isomac grinder, and some decent beans (rather than preground stuff – which was ok, but fresh ground is worlds better) makes good coffee – its a case of what ou put into it I think – so good coffee and a grinder should be factored into the cost
Think the gaggia site has some reasonably priced refurbs
The blue mountain coffee someone on here was ‘pushing’ is pretty nice – took me about 2 days to get through my bag (which is why I say pushing – havent felt that weird since drinking pints of coffee as a teenager)