Been watching the price of this for ages, cheapest it's been for a couple of years that I've seen as these are now supplied by Breville, still made in Italy.
*Price on the Lelit Mara and Bianca may also be good, I've not been watching them personally
Functionally very similar, you won't notice any real difference in coffee, however the Lelit has much better build quality and would easily outlast the Breville. Much easier to repair if something goes wrong as well.
I've been told that since Breville have taken over Lelit in Australia they have slashed spare parts availability by about 1/3 though, which is a shame, as a big draw for these machines imo is their repairability.
@wintermadness once warranty is out it's easy enough and cheaper just to buy parts direct from Italy espresso parts supplier
I'm upgrading from a Breville dual boiler, it's definitely better quality, unknown if makes better coffee yet
$2059 from their ebay store with PLUS120
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/235255945246?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mk…
Mara x $1899, this is a bargain, if your prefer e61
Lowest price ive ever seen.. got mine for about 2k in 2021
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/335243411876?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mk…
And heat exchange instead of dual boiler. But it does look good.
Mara also gets bonus points for counter space!
Code seems to have changed to SAVEBF
Code changed again to BFRI30
Whats going on?
Damn didn't even lnt they had eBay store, bugger, did search around too
As a Mara owner, I would preference one of them over this. Still a very good machine.
I was a bit sad when I heard that Breville had bought them.
I thought the heat up time for Mara is too long? I guess this is as well at 20 mins.
Got mine scheduled with a wifi plug. But yes, i schedule it on about 30min prior to use, and turn off manually after my afternoon coffees
I've used this machine since 2020. I know the common line is "it will outlast Breville" but not sure if that's necessarily true.
Mine developed a leak around the boiler and I contacted the distributor of Lelit (prior to Breville taking over) and it was a painful 3-4 month journey to eventually getting a a brand new replacement machine from Breville directly under ACL. This was despite always using filtered water throughout the life of the machine.
It is very easy to use and has relatively quick warm-up time but I'm not sure if I would buy a Lelit machine again.
Bear in mind that Breville's authorised repairers are clueless and/or incompetent and has no idea how to handle these machines.
Mine came back from one of their authorised repairers bastardised (wrong button from another model used, machine makes hissing sounds at stand-by like steam is leaking, sealant used to band-aid fix leak, chassis bent out shape, all rubber seals around the top of the machine weren't even installed on return etc…)
Breville eventually realised that my machine was bastardised to point of no return and they agreed to send me a brand new replacement.
Obviously this is just one story but mine hasn't been that great.
Would this be considered an upgrade from a Breville Dual Boiler?
I ask because mine has died and I am in the market for a new machine.