Keurig B-70 B70 Platinum Single-Cup Home Brewing System
|
List Price: Our Price: $164.00 You Save: $65.99 (29%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
|---|
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Keurig B-70 B70 Platinum Single-Cup Home Brewing System
Customer Review: Expensive for Short Term Quality: Customer Service Finally Came Through
Summary: 1 Stars
This machine is a nice gadget that makes pretty good coffee, albeit somewhat expensive. However, if you decide to purchase one of these machines, be aware you may only get about a year of good performance before trouble sets in. I bought 2 of these machines, almost a year apart. The first one I used myself, usually brewing only a cup per day. Even though I followed all the maintenance recommendations, and even used the charcoal filter, the machine started acting up about a month after the one year warranty ran out. It started giving only partial cups some of the time. Descaling and cleaning the needles helped for a short time before the machine reverted to short cups. As the next few months wore on, we got used to having to lift the handle and re-brew the same K-cup to get a full cup of coffee. With a little more time, the machine started refusing to work at all. We'd turn it off and on, try descaling again, and cleaning the needles, but the problems just got worse. Now it refuses to brew at all. It just sits there and makes strange noises, but gives no coffee.
Unfortunately, before my problems started I bought another of these machines for my daughter. Hers seemed to work okay, except for the occasional short cup, until it was 11 months old. At that point it broke down completely, spewing water all over her counter. Since she had one more month to go on the warranty, she was able to get a replacement. Hopefully this one will last longer.
In my opinion, you're rolling the dice on just how long one of these machines will last. Just remember that it can be an expensive gamble.
UPDATE *****
A lady named Angela posted a comment to my review and said I should have called Keurig about my problems. I did, in fact, call them prior to posting this review, and should have mentioned that. I've copied and pasted my answer to Angela here:
Angela, thanks for your reply. I should have noted that I did indeed call Keurig to try and resolve this problem. Almost 2 weeks ago I emailed them and detailed everything that went on with my brewer. I received an email back from Amanda in customer service advising me to call a number she gave me. I spoke with a man in Customer service. After listening to my tale of woe, he took my name and promised to have tech support call me. Shortly thereafter a man named Rick called and we went through all the steps he could think of to get the brewer working. Nothing worked. In fact, the brewer had reached the point where it would literally only give a cup of fluid once every 20 or 30 tries. Once we did everything tech support advised, it absolutely refused to work at all any more. So, as bad as the situation was, it was now worse. Rick put me on hold. When he came back on he said I was too many months past the warranty expiration and they wouldn't give me a new brewer. They would only offer me a discount on a new brewer. I told him that with the problems people all over the web were having with their machines, not to mention my own, I would not buy another Keurig even at a discounted price. I bought my brewer later than you, and registered it it January 2009. Apparently, besides building a lesser quality machine, Keurig also doesn't treat customers equally. I find this very disturbing to say the least, and one more reason why people should stay away from Keurig. Good luck with the machine they're sending you. I have a feeling you'll need it.
Another update:
After seeing how Angela got a replacement brewer with a machine older than mine, and the prodding from family members, I decided to call Keurig customer service and complain one last time about the apparently unequal replacement policy. This time they decided as a 'one time courtesy' to send me a replacement brewer after all. The lesson to be learned here is to be persistent if you feel you've been treated unfairly.
I thought about increasing the one star rating, but decided against it since so many people are having trouble with this particular model. If you decide to buy a Keurig, I'd buy something different than the Platinum B70. And make sure to call customer service the first moment anything goes wrong. You want to be on record in case a replacement is needed.
Customer Review: Wasteful, inconvenient, expensive and the coffee comes out lousy, what a deal!
Summary: 1 Stars
UPDATE 03.02.11:
I officially hate this item. If zero stars were an option this would get it. If you use the K-cups it's convenient but the coffee is watery cr@p and you'll generate tons of garbage even if you only drink moderate amounts of coffee. You can run the brewer twice, but really? For $300 I have to run it twice just to get a decent cup of coffee? And compared to regular coffee the K-cups are expensive.
If you want to use regular coffee you can use the My K-Cup insert but it's completely inconvenient and wastes tons of water to clean the stupid filter holder thingy.
Basically... if you want to drop $300 for expensive, watery coffee... or if you just want a nice hassle every morning to clean a fiddly little insert over and over... this is your brewer.
But if you just want decent coffee quickly with virtually no waste, no mess and no hassle... spend $20 on a one-cup brewer. Even if it breaks once a year you can buy a new one every year for 15 years before you reach the cost of this POS Keurig, and the amount of garbage generated will be significantly less too.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Bought this item for my wife. All the reviews saying that it makes incredibly weak coffee are 100% accurate, but that's not the only issue. There are many basic failures with this device, none of them individually bad enough to warrant a 1 star rating but when gathered together... pretty close. Here's my issues....
1. This is just a mind-boggling oversight on something like this IMO... there's 5 sizes you can brew, from tea cup to travel mug... but the brewer doesn't in *any* way change what it does based on the size of cup you choose... so if you brew tea-cup size you get a bitter overly-strong cup. If you brew travel mug size you get brownish coffee-flavored water. So instead of getting a consistent, evenly strong cup of coffee across all 5 cup sizes the flavor and strength of the coffee varies wildly between cup sizes.
2. At normal cup size the coffee, even when using "dark roast" k-cups, is anemic and tasteless.
3. Wasteful on several levels, starting with the fact that if you brew using a k-cup the coffee is weak, if you brew again with the same k-cup in the machine... there's PLENTY of coffee left in there... so if you toss a K-cup away after one use you just wasted 50% of the coffee you paid for.
4. Also using the K-Cups generates huge amounts of garbage. If you have a family of two coffee drinkers who drink a cup twice a day you generate 4 pieces of garbage per day just from this device. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply that by 7 days a week and by lord knows how many families... that's a lot of garbage.
5. The available "My k-cup" filter that allows you to use your own ground coffee is tremendously wasteful of water and also brews a very weak cup. It's a major PITA to clean and you'll use more water just getting it cleaned up for the next use than you'll use in two or three cups of coffee. Massively inconvenient and not water-conscious at all. Mind you I'm not tree hugger, so when a device makes me aware of how much garbage it generates and how much water it wastes... there's a problem.
6. Splashes coffee out of cups as it brews.
So basically... choose your poison: Expensive, wasteful K-cups... or inexpensive but majorly inconvenient My k-cup filter that wastes tons of water to clean and is a major hassle to clean. Neither choice is what I would call ideal.
The only reason I haven't returned this item is that we did figure out how to get a decent cuppa out of it... brew twice per k-cup. Once on the tea-cup size, then open the lid and close it and brew again (into the same coffee cup) on the next size up, using the same k-cup. Coffee then is a good strength and it is fast enough that brewing twice is not a big deal.
But seriously... should I have to figure out a "workaround" to get a $300+ coffee maker to make a decent cup of coffee? I don't think so. And even having a decent cup in my hand doesn't alleviate the other problems. I won't return it, but I certainly would NOT suggest anyone buy this.
Customer Review: Don't Freak Out-Ours stopped working after about 2 weeks also, But-
Summary: 4 Stars
Final update 4-14-2010
I went through 3 brewers that all had issues with the pump. I have changed my review back to 4 stars because Keurig is a top notch company. To their credit they replaced my brewer 3 times without cost to me and gave me some free coffee for the trouble. They identified a problem with this platinum brewer's pump and stopped sale of the brewer until the issue was resolved. I have been using my new brewer without problem for 4 weeks now and I'm even using using tap water. The other brewers had issues after 2 weeks or less so I think I have a winner. I know that this brewer has been redesigned because it performs differently now. I have noticed that when this new brewer pumps it starts the pumping with a burst which is noticeable by the sounds that each brewer made. It starts out strong for a second or two then slows down to a regular pumping. The old brewer would lazily pump at the same rate then stall and shut itself off. I think this new turbo pump has fixed this issue.
I wish all companies stood behind their products like keurig has. As you can see from the reviews this brewer had a bad 6-9 months. I believe the issue has been resolved with the new pump and I would highly recommend this product to anyone. FYI-if you are considering the brevell stainless unit you should know that the only difference between that brewer and the platinum is the stainless steel case. So unless you need stainless steel to match your kitchen you should get this platinum brewer instead and save some cash.
Original review 2-18-2010 4 stars
OK this is what happened. After about 2 weeks and 4 gallons of bottled water, the unit was starting to have trouble pumping water into the heater. FYI-It pumps twice during a brew. It pulls half of what it will use on the fist pumping then after the brew it will pump again. Ours got to the point where we would brew a cup then it would shut itself off during the second pumping. We would turn it back on. Brew another cup and it would shut itself down again. We noticed it was not pumping the same amount of water when it was new. So, something was blocking the flow. We are supposed to get a indicator when the unit needs descaling. That never showed up. So I did it any way. I actually had to do it twice to get it working again. Ever since descaling the unit it has worked flawlessly for the last 2 months and we have gone through about a dozen gallons of water. We are quite happy with the brewer now and I am surprising myself by giving it a positive review after the first month. What I discovered is that the unit was shutting itself down because it knew something was wrong. The built it safety devices would not pump the water if it did not detect enough flow during the pumping.
So if your unit is doing the same thing don't freak out-descale it. preferably sooner than later. It is very simple and does wonders. We do ours every 2-3 months regardless if it needs it or not. We keep the unit on overnight and let the white vinegar sit in the unit. Just so you have a reference point We typically make 3-4 cups a day. If you make more than this you will need to descale more often.
We absolutely love this unit and can't see going back to the mr coffee anytime soon. Some people have mentioned a noise problem. I find that hard to understand. Our Mr coffee gurgling and dripping is 10 times louder than the kuerig.
Our fav flavors so far are Timothy's German Chocolate cake, Green mountain's breakfast blend coffee and Newman's own extra bold.
Update: 3-2-2010
I have changed this review to a 3 star product. For over 150 bucks for the brewer, I have to descale way to often. Even tho it still works, this is a nuisance that needs to be addressed by Keurig. Keurig Customer service has agreed and are shipping me a new brewer. There must be a bad batch of brewers that have been sold because the most recent reviews have leaned to the negative side and customer service did not even inquire much about the brewer. They simply told me they we sending me a new brewer. The customer service has been excellent so far. I hope this brewer works better than the last one as I am now very addicted to the german chocolate cake.
Customer Review: Great coffee or tea in about 30 seconds
Summary: 5 Stars
Beautiful coffee maker, the pictures don't do it justice. I've had it for about a month now and it performs perfectly every time. Had to buy it straight from Keurig because everyone else was sold out. I usually buy everything from Amazon because of the free shipping but Keurig also offered free shipping and it still arrived in 6 days.
Comes with a variety pack of 20 coffees and teas. The Green Mountain seems to consistently make the better tasting coffee and I liked the Bigelow tea. But Tully has a nice French roast and Van Houtte Cafe has a nice coffee called Eclipse blend. The point is that not every coffee and tea tastes the same with this machine. There is a lot of variety and definitely something for everyone.
As soon as it arrived I took it out of the box and plugged it in. I threw the switch on the back and it powered up with blue lights everywhere. The front blue LCD screen said that it wasn't ready yet and needed to be primed. I refused to read the directions so I didn't know what that meant. The reservoir lights were blinking at me so I took it out, filled it with water, and put it back. Was very easy to do and went firmly right back into place. As soon as I did that the brew light started flashing at me so I pressed it and off it went. Some motor inside started whirring and sucking down the water. I really wasn't sure what was going on so I caved and checked the directions. They assured me I was doing the right thing and in the right order. Almost half the water was taken in the first time and the pump was kind of loud.
I placed an empty mug underneath and pressed the brew button. Hot water filled the mug in about 20 to 30 seconds. I threw that first cleansing cup of hot water out and reached for my first K-Cup. I lifted the handle and placed it loosely into the holder and closed the clamp back down. It moved smoothly that first time and still does after many uses, a nice solid feel. The LCD said it was ready to brew so I pressed the Brew button again. With the pump much quieter this time but still louder than I thought is should be. I had a steaming cup of coffee in about 25 seconds. I lifted the handle and threw the K-cup away. The coffee was great.
I like my coffee when it is almost too hot to drink and that is the temperature of this coffee every time. There is a way to turn the heat down on this coffee maker but that's not for me. The hotter the better. Thank you Keurig for not wimping out. Hot, hot coffee is important to me and you delivered. I drank that coffee quickly and it was smooth and good. I placed my coffee cup back under and put in a Decaf K-Cup. This time I pressed the button to increase the cup size by 1 and pressed the brew button again. In about 30 seconds I had my second cup of coffee that went almost to the top of my mug with a completely different brand and flavor. Nice and hot and ready to drink. I love having the 4 sizes of mugs to choose from. I used the largest setting only once when I filled my travel mug to run to the post office. For this I had to pull out the drip tray to fit my tall travel mug. It slid straight out and even the bottom plastic tray underneath had dimples on it to catch any drips. So far though this thing has not dripped after filling my mug. I used a Senseo at a friends house and it drips a lot after it is supposed to be done. But I guess the design of the K-Cups forbids dripping. Since then I've had many more coffees and teas and every time it does a superb job. Very consistent in feel and performance. I feel like it will be making me perfect hot coffee for a long time.
I now have 5 variety packs set up next to my coffee maker each from a different company. I usually have a lot of friends and family coming in and out of the house and now any of them can dig through and find a coffee or tea that interests them and make themselves a nice steaming cup. One right after the other. Very nice job Keurig and thank you.
Customer Review: This is a great coffee maker!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this for my husband for Father's Day. I figured he only drinks 2 cups of coffee a day so the price was pretty reasonable. If he drank much more that that I am not so sure I would have made this purchase. The k-cups are pricey and they are not easily found in local stores. That being said it makes a very nice cup of coffee. My husband drinks the 9oz size and then when his cup is brewed (this is the best level flavor for him) I just lift the lever and lower it back again then press the 'brew' button. This makes a very very light coffee flavor and then I add a packet of hot chocolate to my water. I can have a nice cup of mocha flavored hot chocolate. I can usually get 2 cups of hot chocolate flavored with diluted coffee. So that was a nice bonus!
I also purchased the filter so you can use your own grounds. You have to play around with the amound of grounds used to get the flavor you desire. Again, it makes a good cup of coffee...the k-cups are the preferred method. But when you can't always find or drive the distance to the only store that sells the k-cups or your order has not arrived yet this filter is fine to use.
Don't waste your time buying the hot chocolate packs...especially the ones you pour directly into your cup (there are some that come in the k-cup package). They are more pricey than they are worth. If you just brew a hot cup of water and use any brand hot chocolate it boils down to the same thing (no pun intended :) )
To help my husband out, if I see the water line going down I just go ahead and bring it back to level. I keep a filtered water pitcher in the refrigerator just for this.
I should mention I am not a coffee connoisseur and neither is my husband. We just know what tastes good to us. The coffee brewed in this machine seems to taste better than the other home coffee makers we've used in the past. My 'mocha hot chocolate' is about the best way to have chocolate for me. I am glad I took the suggestion from another reviewer on that one.
Another nice thing about this is the total lack of mess involved. I simply keep the water level full, purge the system when needed, and use the k-cups for the most part. I don't have spills on the counter, coffee grounds scattered about, or gross coffee sitting in the carafe until my husband finally dumps it. There is no dirty carafe to worry about. The machine stays very clean without that nasty coffee build up you see on the conventional makers.
Some mention the watery flavor when you use the larger cup settings. This is the case with the highest setting. As I stated, my husband's setting is the 9-oz size using regular flavor coffee. The bold will give it a little more heft in taste. He seems to like either one. If you prefer that extra boost in flavor then just go with the bold flavors. Some day I hope to see k-cups with more of an espresso flavor by using the smallest cup size. Personally, I like the coffee so weak that I can add the hot chocolate for a different taste all together!...hence my waiting until his coffee is already brewed no matter what the flavor.
I am glad I chose the B-70 over all the other sizes out there. The larger water reservoir makes a difference. It is also nice to choose between 4 sizes. I like the cups over the 'pods' because they are sealed until they are needed. Really if you are going to drop serious money on a coffee maker...get a serious coffee maker.
I could have gone with a regular coffee maker and my husband would have been fine with that. But it was Father's Day and he deserves something extra special. The only reason there is four stars instead of five is the difficulty in finding the k-cups and once you do find them the price. Still, I highly reccommend this item.