This is by far the most impressive coffee maker I've used. It combines the ease and speed of pods with the brew quality of a high end coffee maker. It's simple to use. You pour your whole beans into the hopper at the top, select cup size, brew strength and press the power button. It draws its water from the side mounted water container and brews a perfect cup of coffee in a minute. The coffee my wife drinks is pre ground and this machine will use that as well. There's a separate fill area for ground coffee and you can choose the whole bean or ground when brewing, this way we each have our own. It has coffee strengths ranging from light, regular, strong, iced coffee (even stronger) and espresso. Clean up is easy, just remove the drip table and empty the grounds. You can even have the machine compensate for water hardness depending on your water source. This is hands down the best coffee machine you can buy.