I was able to pull off 2 commercial grinders and a PIDd gaggia for 500 dollars. I have a mazzer super Jolly and Rossi RR45 for drip and I'm a high school student. If you want new stuff probably a silvia with a preciso will kick some serious @$$.

I've been looking into the Crossland, and I am not sure I like the amount of electronics in it. It does look a bit plastic to me and the menus seem to take the semi-automatic out of the equation and make it a bit more automatic (except grinding and tamping).

"Automatics" brew using a specific volume of water. A "semi-automatic" allows you to stop the brew when you like. Most, if not all, automatics can be used as semi-automatics. At worst, you can always pull the cup away from the stream of brewed coffee and make an automatic function as a semi-automatic that way.

While some of the Crossland's electronically controlled features allow for automatic operation, you can use the machine as a semi automatic by stopping the pour at any time you desire.

If there's one thing you don't want from an entry level machine, it's inconsistent temperatures; and the old-fashioned, non-electronic, SBDU (single boiler dual use) machines like the Silvia are inconvenient and inconsistent in spades. They're steaming abilities are also extremely limited. Considering what's available now, there isn't much rationale to buy a Silvia or any of the old fashioned SBDUs.

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about the feeling of having some control. Unfortunately, few if any, entry-level machines allow much meaningful control because they don't let you know what's going on and work-arounds tend to be kludgy and/or (again) inconsistent; or, like adding a PID to an SBDU, expensive and limited to solving only one of the two serious problems.

The sort of real control which allows you to find the best brewing parameters on the fly and is built around an otherwise good-performing and sturdy machine is expensive. More than anything else, that's what money buys or doesn't buy. Talk to your banker. But, at least the Crossland and other electronically controlled machines allow you to use "bitter/sour" profiling to adjust your brew temps accordingly.

You approach Silvia's appropriate brew temps by timing the interval between the time the "almost ready" light went off and starting the brew. The right interval will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 seconds. Unfortunately, using a watch to control times won't always get you the desired, "close-enough" temps. And, unless you want to add a PID or some other sort of electronic temperature control, a watch is pretty much all you got. This isn't just typical of Silvia, but typical of the type.

Ask yourself if you'd rather have a plasticky machine which makes adequate coffee and lasts until three weeks before graduation; or machine which makes crap coffee half the time, won't allow you to make two large lattes in a row without a five minute wait, is built like a rock and lasts for ten years.

Finally, I'm not selling you a Crossland, Silvano or anything else. Nor do I care what you eventually buy -- even if it's a Silvia. What I do care about is helping you get enough information to orient you in a brave new world.

Good luck,
BDL