Mr. Coffee Coffee Maker with Auto Pause and Glass Carafe, 12 Cups, Black

No bells and whistles. Great coffee maker. Did not want clock and timer, etc. Only thing I don’t like is that the whole lid lifts up to put water in. The picture really doesn’t show how long this lid is. I have to pull it out from under the cupboards over the counter or can’t get the water in. Just an F.Y.I.

I bought this because I wanted a white coffee maker to match my other small appliances. Be aware, this is 100% manual. There is no automatic turn off after 2 hours like most coffee makers. So my first pot boiled dry. I guess I will have to get used to turning off the coffee maker when I’ve finished for the day.

This 12-cup coffeemaker is a very handy, everyday tool to have around in the kitchen. It features a plethora of benefits, along with a few caveats (a.k.a. drawbacks) worth mentioning.

Pros:

– A very simple, minimal design, featuring a translucent window to gauge how much water is put inside.

– Fully plastic and very lightweight. It can make cleaning a simple process. This also means a reduced probability of scaling, as it frequently happens on metal products.

– Lightweight decanter, though the container is made of thin glass (or possible that it is made of polycarbonate: not confirmed). It makes it up with a plastic lid and a sturdy plastic handle.

– Coffee comes out rather hot—as expected.

– Heating surface helps keep the coffee hot.

– The coffee that comes out is, indeed, coffee. I’m kidding: I can taste the coffee bean that the drink came out of, and not some utterly burnt mess. (It’s able to do its intended purpose very well.)

– The price isn’t too bad. My expected baseline would be around $25—lucky if it’s $20.

– Product was well-packaged, with most of the packaging being environmentally responsible (using cardboard instead of styrofoam packaging).

– Legible instruction manual.

Cons:

– The thin decanter may need some care put forth into it when cleaning. Following the care instructions can help expedite the process.

– The power cable, upon unboxing, was stuck so far into the device (I couldn’t get it out of the cable management/routing hole in the rear) that I had to unscrew ALL screws on the bottom in order to safely remove the cable from the rear. I was in fear of yanking the cable too hard to where it could break something—the rear cable routing hole, OR the cable. *I have the strangest feeling this was a QA oversight and not something intentionally done by design or the manufacturing process.*

– The power cable is pretty stiff, which makes routing the cable itself a mere frustration. One would question if it’s worth wiggling the power cable in order to loosen the cord itself, at the expense of eventually wearing out the copper wiring inside. This might also explain why it was so difficult to remove the cable from the rear hole.

– The coffeemaker tends to drip its liquid contents from the filter whenever you pull the decanter from the device. It’s very annoying, but can usually be resolved with a quick wipe of a damp rag/paper towel, followed up by wiping it with a dry towel in order to lessen the chances of staining the heating pad.

– There are plenty of single-use plastics within the packaging that might be worth reducing.

Suggestions to rectify some of the issues noted:

– If this isn’t being done, already: Make an effort to use less single-use plastics in regards to packaging the included materials. I’m certain that most of the cardboard is doing well enough of a job in keeping the product safe.

– Use power cables that are easily flexible instead of the stiff power cable. It’s extremely bothersome to be barely able to move it around in especially confined spaces.

– If possible: redesign the filter basket so it doesn’t just drip onto the heating pad whenever you pull out the decanter for a quick pour. It can make maintenance quite a chore since the liquid contents dries up rather quickly on the heated surface.

Overall: This is a low-cost (at the time of purchase: ~$28) coffeemaker where you aren’t the kind of person to use more excessive features (e.g. “brew later”, an on-screen clock, brewing preferences), and just wants a nice cup of Joe. You simply can’t go wrong with this device. Since the price for this product has greatly fluctuated (a.k.a. gone up), I absolutely recommend getting this at a much lower price, as getting it around $40 is simply not worth the expense.

I have use Mr Coffee coffee pots for years but I am finding that the material on the warming plate is much thinner than it use to be. Although they have been cleaned after each use the warming plates are the reason I usually end up buying a new Mr Coffee. Perhaps next time I should try a Bunn.

I was lucky that the price dropped to $18 when I needed to buy it. I might not be as satisfied if I’d paid the $36 that it’s priced today.

At this point in my life, my savings is such that I can afford a good coffee maker. Unfortunately, good seems to only mean “more bells & whistles”. The real truth is that the electric drip coffee maker hasn’t improved a whole lot in the last 70 years. I don’t need digital. I don’t need a timer or a clock or anything “programmable”. I need it to heat up water and drip it onto ground coffee. And I don’t want to pay extra simply because it has 27 modes to choose from.

When I saw this Mr Coffee with a single ON switch, I thought “Perfect!” And it kind of is. It does everything that I need. But I have a couple of beefs. The biggest is that it feels VERY cheaply made. I give this a likely shelf life of five years tops. These days, large manufacturers are doing everything they can to reduce their costs, and using less material is Solution #1. It feels very flimsy.

My minor beef is with the gargantuan lid. When lifted, it’s huge and towering. In the past, I could open my coffee makers under the overhead cabinets. This one, I have to pull out and away from everything else to make room. A side issue with the lid is that when brewing, a lot of condensation forms on the underside, and when the coffee is done and you open the lid, there’s quite a bit of water that drains back down into the reservoir and starts brewing. So I have to remember that when the coffee has finished, open the lid briefly and wait a few more minutes for the lid condensation to brew.