I bought the Cuisinart bread maker after looking at numerous models. I'm a bread maker virgin, and so don't have anything to compare, but I'm really pleased with my choice. It makes really good bread, great cakes (particularly ginger cake) and looks the part. The crust on the top of the loaves are flaky, but that might be the same for all machines, but the taste is great. One critisism that I read was that the stainless steel marks, and is difficult to clean, but when do you touch it? You remove the baking tin put in the ingredients, put the tin back in the machine, and set the programme, at no point do you touch the stainless steel. So, it makes great bread, looks good and is efficient, what more do you want? Maybe a cheaper price? If you can afford to have a £150 machine sitting on your work top, then buy one of these, you won't regret it.