Customer Reviews

Hamilton Beach 12 Cup Programmable Coffeemaker Black

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The carafe pours smoothly without dripping all over everything and the basket cover drip is stopped by steam release vents. The cone filter improves coffee flavor and eliminates the grounds from overflowing. Now I don't ask myself if I really turned off the coffee pot after I leave. I have experienced a black charred carafe but no more potential fires. It has the coffee ready in the morning giving me extra precious minutes. The basket placement issue is easily solved by leaving the carafe off the hot plate until the basket is properly installed. The black stainless is sharp and does not show the coffee stain that makes the white look dirty. Love this inexpensive pot and bought a second one to improve my daily experience while at our cabin.

The hot pad always makes sizzling sound during brewing even though the bottom of the pot has been dried before brewing. While pouring the coffee, there's always coffee dripping from from the edge of the coffee pot lid. Customer service will replace the unit only if the shipping expense is paid. Never buy from Hamilton Beach again!

I agree 100% with the unfavorable reviews. I bought this hastily because my 6 year-old Gevalia died & I needed something inexpensive & ASAP for the holidays. Everything that can go wrong has (broken lid, basket overflows, pouring spills, etc.) My previous unit wasn't pricey either, but one didn't have to baby it just to brew & serve a decent pot of coffee. The taste quality has been fine, but the function SUCKS. No more Hamilton Beach anything ever again.

I have had many coffee makers over the years. Recently, I broke the carafe on my beloved Black and Decker, and could not find a replacement for my model. I had to have something quick, so I got this the next day. Let's start with the good:

Great coffee!!! Smells great, tastes great.

Fast Brewing

Inexpensive

I can only find one con, but unfortunately it is a major one. I would say every three pots of coffee made, the coffee maker backs up, and if you are not right there to take care of it, you have a mess on your hands. Half brewed coffee and soaked grounds will cover your counter top in a blink of an eye. Most coffee makers I have had use the basket filters, and this uses the cone. Never once did my Black and Decker do this, and with this maker, I have to sit there while it brews, as I don't feel like cleaning up a huge mess. Aside from this, I would recommend it wholeheartedly!

I've had this pot two weeks now. NO problems with any type of spilling. Brews quickly. Coffee tastes great. The basket refered to in an earlier review... can be a bit tempormental to straigten at times... but it isn't a big deal. This basket is DISHWASHER SAFE. I like that. My last HB coffee maker's basket had to be washed by hand.

Timer works great for that Coffee READY when you wake up mug! If you want a brew strengh feature... (my last one did...) look for something else. Although I have found I don't need it... even with only 1-4 cups brewing.

I spent $20 for mine... even if some think it's flimsy... (It's sturdy enough for me, I'm not disappointed). $20-25 is like 10 cups of coffee spent at your favorite coffee stop... then it pays for itself! I'd buy again.

I purchased this Hamilton Beach digital 12 cup coffee maker to replace my 10 year old Melitta FastBrew which finally died. I got the coffeemaker on a Black friday blowout for $19.99. I am going to return it. The coffeemaker is poorly designed. First off - the coffee is way too hot, secondly I can not get a good tasting cup of coffeee out of this thing. The coffee tastes bitter and almost burned. What a disappointment. My old coffeemaker was far superior to this one .....

I love-love-love this coffee maker. It is super easy to use and program and makes the fantastic coffee. Coffee stays hot and turns off automatically after 2 hours. I would definitely buy it again and have recommended it to many of my friends.

I bought this coffee pot to replace my Proctor Silex due after 10 years, the PS finally broke. This Hamilton Beach I'll have to say, is one of the worse coffeemakers I've ever owned! Less than a week after buying it, the digital numbers in the front went out. A number seven would look like a one, an eight would look like a three, ect, ect. Kinda hard to set it up for morning coffee not knowing what numbers the thing is trying to display! When you pour water into it or coffee out of it, it drips EVERYwhere! The pour spout sucks worse than the pour spout on a Mr Coffee! (and, that's pretty bad!) I'm gonna take this one back to the store and hopefully find me a Proctor Silex!

I used this coffee maker rarely enough I put up with its awful design.

1. The carafe will dribble everywhere. Unless you poor very, very slowly, you will pour coffee into your cup AND onto your counter. Even if you do pour slowly, you'll have to wipe up afterward a bit.

2. The carafe lid is hinged and won't stay open on its own. This means that you can't just put the carafe under the sink spigot to fill while you ready your coffee supplies. The lid will close by itself and interrupt the filling process.

3. The lid to the maker, that you lift to fill it with water, has a clip that has to be released every time. Since it's unlikely that the water or grounds will attempt escape, the clip just becomes another annoyance that has to be managed each morning.

4. The carafe sort-of snaps into coffee maker, overcoming a spring valve designed to let you sneak a cup during filling. The spring is too strong and it take two hands to insert the carafe into the maker.

5. It uses cone filters - not a design problem but they're harder to find in bulk packs, in my opinion.

6. I'm giving it an extra star because the auto-timer function is fairly intuitive and easy to use. The coffee, once you're done wrestling the machine to ready it and wiping up the spills, tastes fine.

In 20 years of owning various coffee makers, I have never been so entirely disappointed.

Pros:
1. Makes a decent cup of coffee (regardless of brewed cup qty).
2. Has a timer for auto-start in the morning.

Cons: (many)
Carafe Design...
1. You WILL spill. The spout design on the carafe is the worst I have ever encountered. It is possible not to spill, but don't bother trying. Just go ahead and have a towel/rag handy or pour over the sink.

2. The lid does NOT remove cleanly. You can remove the lid, but you will have to force it. More than likely, you will break off the little plastic holding nibs. From then on, you will have a lid that will not stay on. Makes washing the carafe a breeze after you go ahead and break it.

3. Until you break the lid off, you CANNOT leave the carafe in the sink to fill without holding the lid open. For some reason, the lid will not "prop" open to receive water from the faucet. It wants to close.

4. The junction between the lid and handle force steam from the hot coffee to come up to your hand when pouring. I actually think that it has to do with the design of the top of the carafe. In order to pour out the last of the coffee, you need to place your hand directly above the carafe opening, and it gets a bit warm. I suspect that you won't actually BURN yourself, but you should be careful.

Timer:
1. Setting an alarm clock is second nature to most of us. Setting the wake-up timer on this coffee maker is not. Perhaps it is just me, but the button pressing needed to set the wake time seems counter intuitive. Press (and hold) the PROG button while pressing the H & M buttons to set the timer. Sounds simple, but you need to do this while holding the coffee maker from the rear, so that it won't slide away from your attempts to press the buttons. Not huge, but annoying.

Filter Basket:
1. The filter basket appears to be approximately 1/8th inch short. I don't have any problems using #4 cone filters, but I just mash the bottom of the filters down. Perhaps they should stand up, but I don't have the patience.

2. The filter basket has to be perfectly aligned under a small plastic lip in order for the "pause & serve" stopper to let the coffee through. We had approximately 5 overflows here before we figured it out. Note: Figuring it out involved removing this feature. We ended up 'accidentally' breaking the stopper off the bottom of the filter basket.

Coffee maker (main body):
1. The water reservoir is difficult to fill. It's not horrible, but the top of the coffee maker opens to a verticle position. Since the reservoir is in the