My father bought us (the workshop) a Philips machine for christmas which is quite nice, he did also buys some self fill cartridges too along with a selection of the pads from the manufacturer and some from other suppliers.
It does make a nice cup with ground coffee, but all the pads are minging are there any nice ones? (usually drink Lavazza red, so nothing super posh) or are the pads and pods just a bit crap?

Dolce Gusto pods are a very meh, which is why we swapped to a Nespresso.

I’ve not managed to find a nicer espresso pod for my Tassimo than what I can get out of my years old Krups manual espresso machine using Illy coffee, but its not bad and far more convenient than firing up the manual machine and having to clean up afterwards and as a result i’ll have a coffee before work rather than saving it to the weekend, so I’m happy to trade taste/quality for convenience to a certain extent. Would be nice of you could get self fill pods for the Tassimo – maybe you can but i’ve not seen them anywhere.

If it’s senseo, then I found the only way to get anything drinkable was to use the double size holder, and a refillable capsule thingy, and the coffee of your choice, and play around with the strength and cupsize buttons to find the one combination that works. Kind of defeats the object of convenience really. Philips pads were awful. All of them.

Glad my machine broke completely.

Yes a senseo, have a pack of the aldi pads that fit too, which aren’t great.
Selfill carts. are easier than press so no issues and am drink less coffee too as only one cup as opposed to a litre a time, productivity doesn’t seem to have suffered though 😉

I have a machine that use the Illy ESE pods and they are very nice indeed.