Originally posted by gunda
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Great review Gunda. Provides some extra balance.
"You have to be careful with water quality. In order to get the control over flow and pressure and temp, the DE seems to have narrow diameter plumbing (I'm sure I saw John say something to this effect somewhere in a post.) I think it's more susceptible to scale than the average E61 machine. The good news is that it's easier to descale the DE - use citric acid and the built-in descale routine - but with hard water you'd be doing it more often with the DE. Easier to use the right water."
I would never have thought of that as I only use double filtered rainwater (Rockingham rainwater on my roof is pretty clean to start with, I also filter it both in and out of the tank). I only descaled my DE1 for the first time about a month ago (i.e. the 7 or 8 month point) as it took that long to develop a faint but perceptible taint. I refuse to feed any espresso machine with poor water. FWIW, I always do a "taste test" before setting up any new machine. Put (say) 50ml of water through the group + empty basket into a ceramic cup or glass (I use borosilicate these days). Cover the cup / glass with a tight fitting lid and wait for it to cool down. Compare it to the same water at the same temperature to some that has not gone through the machine. That difference you can taste is exactly the taint that every coffee out of that machine will start with. Most machines are a dismal fail - especially brass boilers which can impart a "fish oil taint".
Bluetooth frailty: I know gc has had some bluetooth snafus' (V1.0 group), my V1.1 has not missed a beat. Mind you, I suspect the V1.0 does not charge the tablet as well either as gc also has an issue with that. I found out the hard way that leaving the machine on standby does not charge the tablet (only done that once, 5 hours flattened the tablet battery). Considering the Decent takes "forever" to warm up (3 minutes, almost exactly double the 6910 sitting next to it's 75 seconds + 15 second preflush) it is not worth using standby much.
"The DE gives you more options to get things right, and also to get things wrong. Many users posting on the Decent forum say that they've learnt much more, more quickly, on the DE, and I think that even Tampit was saying something along those lines."
...and yes - the DE1 certainly "helps" you learn a lot very quickly. Those real time graphs of pressure, flow and temperature give instant feedback. Invaluable for newbies and experienced users alike.Like you, I suspect the DE1 will continue to improve. I still regard it as a late prototype / early beta which is well worth buying as an early adopter.
I hope this helps.
TampIt

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