Breville Bambino Plus Espresso Machine

Bought his Bambino Plus about a month ago.
Easy to use, and have purchased some nice beans from a local coffee house that roasts their beans on site (always smells wonderful in that shop). I bought beans that had been roasted the day before and had them do an espresso grind for me.
I have watched many videos and read lots of articles on the art of espesso, - also folled the included directions that came with the Bambino, but the shots, really taste no better than regular drip coffee.
Seems to be a wasted experience.

First, I'll say that I bought my Bambino Plus at the Coffee Addicts store in Calgary - what FANTASTIC customer service. Super knowledgable, and offered great advice when comparing this to other machines they have in their showroom. This IS the place to buy a coffee machine.
As my first entry into making home espressos, I couldn't be more happy with the Bambino Plus. I got the stainless version, and it looks fantastic. All the included equipment feels like quality (though, I'm considering a bottomless portafilter as an upgrade). As I mostly make lattes, I found some of the other machines a bit intimidating as a starter machine. I liked that the Bambino Plus could froth milk (very well!) automatically, and when I'm ready, can start frothing my own. I've been using it daily for about 4 months now, and when using good quality coffee and getting the right grind, it's producing lattes that to my taste buds hold up very well to cafes I've enjoyed over the years. Something else this Breville does extremely well - better than anything in it's price point - is heating up the water. It's crazy how fast it can start steaming, or produce hot water (3 seconds). The other thing I really like is the size. My plan was to take this in our RV, and it's size works well for that. I've paired this with the Baratza Encore ESP grinder (hint: Baratza's manual suggests starting at size "15" for espresso, but this was too fine...I finally figured that I need 18-20 depending on the coffee). Right from the start I also got a WDT tool, Breville's dosing funnel (has to be 54mm, so this one works perfect!) and airscape container to keep beans as fresh as possible.

Just for comparison, for several years before I was using Nespresso trying to recreate a latte at home. Going from Nespresso to Breville to make my own is night and day. Once the process is learned, it's actually pretty easy to get great results every time.

After 12 years of trouble free service, my Breville Infuser shot its last shot and I was in need of a replacement. Since I was told the Infuser was now discontinued and I already had a decent grinder, I decided to give the Bambino Plus a try. So far I'm very pleased with this little guy. It seems to perform just as well as my old machine. I was a bit skeptical about the Auto MilQ feature but it actually works very well. I'm still able to manually steam the milk if I want to fine tune but more often than not I just let the Bambino do its thing.

Pros: Small footprint saving some counterspace. Consistently decent shots. Auto MilQ saves time in a pinch.
Cons: No pressure gauge to provide feedback on the shot. No storage drawer tray for extra baskets and tools, or a magnetic slot to hold the tamper like the Infuser had.

Overall I'm happy with the daily java I get from this machine.