By Alex Nunez on October 12, 2010 in
The other day, my coffee maker up and died. As you might imagine, this presented an immediate crisis. After all, between the hours of 6AM and 10AM, there is no more important device in my home. Mostly because without coffee, I'm incapable of operating any other devices in my home. Time for an emergency purchase.
First, a word on my now-kaput java-slinger: the Cuisinart Brew Central (*Est $80). It's currently the Best Reviewed standard coffee maker here at ConsumerSearch. I'd bought it around five, maybe 6 years ago at a Costco near my former employer (this is long before I came to work here). It is indeed a very good machine, and the pros/cons we list are pretty much right on. I'd had only one small problem with it early on, where the filter basket's pause-to-serve feature broke. Cuisinart's customer service was excellent; one call and they shipped off a new basket, no questions asked, no money exchanged. All was fine until about a week ago, when it started shutting itself off randomly. As in, mid-brew. This was an untenable situation.
Now usually when something breaks I view it as an opportunity to upgrade. Visions of a Nespresso or Keurig machine briefly danced in my head. But the truth is, those one-cup coffee makers, as convenient as they are, cost more up front and get pricey to use over the long run. (A can of, say, Chock full o'Nuts is still a screaming deal over the Nespresso capsules or K-Cup refills.) Frankly, I didn't even want to spend another $80 on a new Cuisinart, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the old one. Call me value-conscious. Call me cheap. Whatever. I wanted to spend as little as possible.
Good soldier that I am, I pulled up ConsumerSearch while my wife calmly headed to the local Target. (Better her than me -- if I'd gone, the 2 minute ride would have looked like the opening sequence from The Streets of San Francisco, such is my sense of urgency when faced with the concept of no coffee.)
I zeroed in on the Mr. Coffee JWX27 (*Est $45). Good-looking basic coffee maker, and also a ConsumerSearch Best Reviewed model. Seconds later, my phone rang. It was my wife, calling from the coffee maker aisle. The conversation went something like this:
My Wife: "They have a Mr. Coffee here that's only $25."
Me: "We recommend one called the JWX27. It's like $45."
My Wife: "Well, this seems to have everything, though. It's programmable, etc. plus it looks nice."
Me (skeptical that some $25 machine is going to be any good): "I don't know. What's the model number."
My Wife (clearly regretting that she called me): "Hold on... JWX23. Just look it up."
So I did. And here's what I found: the Mr. Coffee JWX23 is the Mr. Coffee JWX27, only without two entirely superfluous brushed-stainless decorative trim pieces, the presence of which apparently increases the MSRP by 20 bucks. (Somewhere, P.T. Barnum smiles.)
Me: "Buy it."
She came home with the new machine. Following a brief delay (after we got it home, we realized it used different filters than the deceased Cuisinart), a test pot was brewed. And it was good.
To think -- there I was, ready to pay $45. Such extravagance. New rule: $25 or bust. (Somewhere, Joe DiMaggio smiles.)