I work and live out of the country and I'm returning home to visit family/business for about 3 months starting March. Some of that time will be spent living with my parents so my parents bought a cheap espresso machine because they thought I would be able to use it while I was there. Since they got it I was wondering what to expect out of this machine. It's called a "Premium Levella" and you can check the amazon listing here. It feels like a generic cheap white labelled model with some random name put on it. I certainly don't expect much from it but was hoping maybe to get some drinkable lattes. I was trying to find an alliexpress page or more info on it, even just to know the size of PF (the best I can find is "2 Shot Dual Stainless Steel Filter"). anyone know this machine and details you can give me on it?

I get it's of the same caliber as those models and I expect similar results but I am looking for something more info specific to the machine.

This the same problem except that instead of March we made it back in October thanks to the pandemic. I'm having a hard time with the coffee options available in small town Ontario, Canada and thought I would give a go with this. same info as the OP, a Premium Lavella with 15 bar pressure and pressurized PF. I'm here for a while so I thought I could play around with this machine and see what I can get. The first thing is I want to change the PF. it's a 3 ear 53mm PF and I'm having a hard time finding a replacement. does anyone know of a more known machine that has a 53mm PF and 3 ear design so find an option to replace it with?

I'm familiar with the JH video posted above but JH doesn't mod machines and it would be more interesting to see cheap machine modded and compare their performance than a cheap stock machine (more of what Lance Hedrick is doing than JH) I'm comfortable with installing a dimmer to the pump but there isn't much point with a pressurized PF.

Is the portafilter pressurized or the basket? Sometimes you can just unscrew part of the portafilter and it becomes unpressurized.
I would use a dimmer because the full pump pressure will make decent extractionimpossible.
Many machines use a 53mm portafilter and you can buy bottomless ones and different baskets but there is no information about exact measurements. I guess they use the same portafilter as Krups machines?

The basket is pressurized, specifically it's double walled. I can just get a new basket of course but I was hoping for a bottomless. The way the PF is would make it difficult to cut the bottom off and may break the handle off. The dimmer mod is what I was hoping to do but I won't bother if I can't get the basket/PF replaced. I can find lots of 53mm PF but it's been hard to find a 3 ear one. I may just have to give up on the PF and focus on the basket.

Btw, thanks for the tip on the krups PF size, I haven't found one available but at least its a brand that's more recognizable