I'm very particular about my coffee and I really didn't think I'd find a coffee maker that I was 100% satisfied with, but this one has done the trick. One of the first things that sold me on this particular model was the charcoal filter. Unfortunately I live in an area with awful, hard tap water that has a very strong metallic taste to it. With our previous coffee maker we'd use bottled water to pour through the maker, but this got really costly, as my family drinks a lot of coffee. We change the charcoal filter ever few months and the coffee has absolutely no metallic taste to it at all.

I was also interested in the strength selector, which has two options: bold and regular. I do like a bolder flavor and usually just add more coffee. I'm not sure exactly how this works in this machine, but it allows me to select 'bold', put less coffee in and still get that bolder flavor. Definitely a money saver over the course of a year.

Self-cleaning is a must for me in a coffee maker, as I just don't have the time to clean the thing every day or week. But this one takes it a step further and tells me exactly when to run the cycle. The alert comes on, I run the cycle and it's clean as can be. Very simple and user friendly.

There were other technologies that I really enjoy in this coffee maker. It actually gives you a few 'beeps' when the coffee's done, which is helpful on busy mornings when I'm running around trying to get everyone ready. It's also programmable. I can set it to start at a certain time in the morning and also for the heat to shut off after a specific period. Overall it really meets our needs quite well.