After reading several negative reviews, I feel I should throw Petmate a bone so to speak. We’ve been using the black LeBistro  with our cat about 7 to 8 years. It has always worked reliably, and when the low battery light comes on, I know I have about a month to get it replaced. Our cat food is the small size kibble  and we feed a quarter of a cup twice daily Things they could improve: the display is not bright enough, my cat can fish out extra kibble, and we eventually bought an AC adapter so that we know longer had to buy batteries (the D batteries last close to 2 years).  I was checking out the new model to see if those minor things had been corrected.  I cannot speak to the reliability of the new model.