In the last few days I've been dealing with the machine a little more than I planned to, I've collected some thoughts going through the process and thought might be an interesting experience reviewing it and practise my English writing, you are warned here

I published a few updates in regards to a leaking issue with my machine in different threads, it is obviously not ideal and I was aggravated but I felt I've been a little on the negative side mostly trying to ensure my consumer rights, there are other things to talk about the machine.

Being a first-time owner of a serious coffee machine and a leakage within 2 weeks of ownership, at one point I did consider ending it due to dropped confidence level and get a different model, maybe an LMLM, perhaps a GS3-AV, but I found myself still wanting to have an E1P on my kitchen bench after all this.

Anyways, if you are still reading, I prayed to the gods of expressos for you and your future pulls will be channeling free

My unit and me:

A white Victoria Arduino Eagle One Prima was purchased in Australia, produced in Feb 2021 with firmware version v100, and power is soft limited at 1800w.

I'm a home user without much prior experience of semi-automatic coffee machines ownership.

This is a review of my thoughts on some aspects of the machine that I'd like to comment on after a short two weeks of daily usage.

Aesthetics:

This is subjective but overall I find the machine pleasant to look at. The white colour and curvy shape fit well with my home interior. I'd like to think it won't look out of place in most homes, rather an eye-catching piece instead.

It's nice to have a different design to choose from, in the same price group with LMLM and GS3.

Attached on curves side panels makes the machine looking a lot more dynamic from the side. With an LMLM, you'd spend hundreds of dollars for good quality wooden knobs, and more to paint the panels properly, a custom job that takes nontrivial effort at a third party. I guess it's a part of the fun. Changing a few panels is much easier and about the extent to what many people (me) can and want to do at home. Although there aren't any custom panels available yet.

LED on the back panel with an in-app on/off option is a nice touch, gives the machine another dimension. Views from the rear are modern. Logo size and placement on the front and back are elegant and well-positioned. The paint job is smooth, but a tiny bit thin and cheap IMO, I wish they are a little bit more refined. The panels feel heavy and the texture feels like ceramic on the touch.

I am a fan of the toggle switches. Intuitive and functional. Yes, they are plastic and some might be annoyed, better quality components would be nice. The group head looks solid and polished, pretty. The digital timer is the feature we paid for and blacked out when off, wouldn't have it another way.

Three programmable buttons are plenty useful. I don't really agree with the big slider on LMLM, it's oversized on/off switch suggests pressure profiling but it's not what it does. Again highly subjective. The rotatable steam wand is a little too close to the group head, but given the size of the machine, probably inevitable. And it's a cool touch wand, why not make the hot water outlet cool touch too?

A pump pressure gauge would be handy, don't know if it'd look as nice with it on the front panel, it might bring too much of a retro vibe. But I often find myself wanting to assert pump pressure, without using the app that is.

The mechanism to access the water tank is a little hard to look at, it looks like someone cut a hole and put the piece back on to cover it.

The top panel doesn't invite me to warm cups on it, compare to an LMLM. I left a few scratches on the stainless and I stopped myself there.

Onto the drip tray, a few things to talk about. Flip it over it's hard not to see the metals are welded together if you know what I mean. But the main problem is the size, it's way too small, it holds about 1.5L of water? In practice, you might not want to fill to the maximum capacity, for a normal person removing and emptying a near full tray will often cause spillages, which happened to me a few times, not safe.

Overall the machine looks clean and elegant from all sides, a great design job IMO. I didn't have the same affection when I first saw a stock LMLM, highly modded ones look a lot nicer but that's also a lot of extras. Stock GS3 looks slightly uninteresting to my liking and can use some level of modding as well.

I'd like to mention the unwrapping experience (not unboxing). Taking those sticky plastic wraps off stainless steel is a painful experience. The first thing you do is to find a screwdriver and take off all the panels to properly peel off the wrapping? Some might enjoy it's a little too much IMO...almost didn't cut myself. I understand it's on for protecting polished metal but I didn't plan to sacrifice my blood in the opening ceremony. Don't be scared, it's not that bad at all I'm being a little excited and careless, just be a little more aware there. And I know you wiped the stainless steel hard to remove those black glue residue after peeling coz I did.

Part 2 is about Making coffee, I might write about it at some point.