Product review (5 stars): Couldn't live without this!!
We live on a sub-tropical island in Japan.  It is hot here, (90+ degrees with 100% humidity), most of the year and we are an outdoor family of five.  My husband and my three boys are outside all day and night except when at school, work, or sleeping and we all consume TONS of water... I go through 15 gallons of purified water a week!

Needless to say, as typical Americans, we like our ice cold but none of the refrigerators here are equipped with any kind of ice machine.  There is not even close to enough space to store ice trays and an ice box in the freezer (at least not for a family of five!) even if you wanted to... which I DON'T... and I got sick of paying for over priced frozen water!

I ordered this Machine and fell in love with the fact that I FINALLY had ice!!  There were a few drawbacks in the beginning.  As other users stated, it did give the ice a plastic taste.  I ran water through it a few times with no success so moved on to the vinegar method.  It did seem to help, although there was still kind of a funny taste to the ice.  The good news is that after the first, or maybe it was the second, week the ice tasted just fine and you couldn't taste anything except water! It may take a bit longer for the average family for their ice to start tasting normal as we use an inordinate amount of ice,(remember the 15 gallons of water?), but it WILL start tasting normal.

We have owned this machine for almost 3 months now and feel that it is definitely worth every penny we spent.  We have never had a problem with it not functioning properly, (and I have a 2 and 3 year old who love to push buttons and wreak havoc on everything), and it makes PLENTY of ice, (We go through a LOT of ice, and although there have been times that there isn't much ice left from what the last person took after a full day of refilling sports bottles, it makes it so quickly that in 15 or 20 minutes or so it drops another tray load in the basket!).

The only down side is also an up side for me.  The ice does tend to be a little softer than  what comes from the freezer, but that is to be expected considering how fast it makes it...  Consequently, the ice does tend to melt a little faster, but I actually like it better because I like to chew on ice and this doesn't break my teeth... plus we mostly drink water so it isn't diluting the liquid in my cup at all so I tend to like the softer ice. My husband who enjoys whiskey and cokes also likes the softer ice because he too is an ice chewer.  When we need firmer, longer lasting ice for a cooler or something, we simply let the ice maker make it and we transfer it into a zip lock bag and put it in the freezer for a while, or the night before. No big deal and we didn't have to pay for over priced frozen water at the store!

In the long run, after doing the math, this machine will pay for itself by the end of next month an then will actually be saving us money!

***UPDATE***
We are going on our 6th month of having this machine and I cannot rave enough about it.  With a family of five we go through tons of ice daily and this little baby has had no problem keeping up.  The ice tastes great and contrary to my previous report that the ice is soft, it actually drops into the tray hard but starts to soften as it slowly melts back into the machine which in turn makes a fresh new batch.  I actually have come to enjoy the ice being softer and tend to wait for it to soften before I use it because I enjoy chewing on it.

I rarely write reviews, let alone an update to one, but I can't begin to tell you how happy I am with this little machine. You won't be sorry with this purchase!