The best aspect of this product is that it makes gelato/ice cream on demand because it is a compressor unit. It also has two churn paddles so that the product has the right air consistency, that is, either for ice cream or gelato. The price of this product was more affordable compared to other brand names. While not compact, the height easily allows it to be placed under cabinets on a counter.
The negative aspects are that it only makes one pint of ice cream/ gelato at a time. Most recipes I use are at least one and a half pints. This requires that the machine is given a short rest period during which I clean the removable container to wash it to ready it for the second churning. The clean up is extremely messy. Removing the ice cream from the paddles and the sides of the container is difficult. I feel that some of the ice cream is lost during this process. Also, if the ice cream becomes chilled to the point where the paddles can no longer turn prior to the timer going off there is no warning noise. I happened to be by the unit at the time, heard the motor and looked in and saw that the paddle was not spinning. I believe that if I had left it on long enough the system would have turned itself off so as not to overheat, but I never let it reach that point.
These are annoyances that I can live with for now but if I find myself making ice cream on a more frequent basis or when the time comes to replace this machine I will splurge on a little more expensive model from another manufacturer that remedies the negative aspects.
The easiest to use, best appliance I own! Now our family can have quality ice cream in 60 minutes. The recipes that are included are great, too. Best of all, no more ice cream that's full of chemicals. Our ice cream is totally organic!
This is a wonderful ice cream maker. I had one that you had to put the bowl in the freezer before putting in the ice cream maker. This just was very inconvenient to me and what I like about this machine is that you just put the ingredients in the bowl and turn it on. It makes it cold automatically and you don't have to pre-freeze anything. Super easy to use and you have ice cream in 45 minutes or so. I could not be happier.
It creates reasonably good ice cream/Gelato. Wish the 2 paddles would be slightly larger, if possible, so as to scrape the cream off the sides as it rotates, at the moment it leaves a hard layer along the sides. The compressor unit is slightly noisy.