Review on Ninja DCM201 14 Cup XL Pro Programmable Coffee Maker - 2 Brew Styles, 4 Programs & Permanent Filter by Adrian Ojeda

Overall, I give this a 5-star rating because, first and foremost, this coffeemaker (er, pardon me "brewer") makes good coffee - not bitter. (Ebay, really? I can't search my orders for "coffeemaker" and find this purchase.) The things that we considered "negative" will probably not affect other people as much, so it seemed fair to stick with the 5-star rating in spite of some of the negatives I explain below.Positive features: it looks nice, the 'footprint' on the counter is not huge, you can program it to start (a feature we love!), it gives you the option of making a "classic" brew vs a "rich" brew (there might be a slight difference in taste so perhaps others who have more refined palates will appreciate this difference). Others have commented on the design of the carafe and my husband and I agree - the carafe is very nice and it pours nicely, no dribbles.Things we consider to be negatives: it should probably be rated as a 10-cup coffeemaker. A full pot of coffee yields fewer mugs of coffee than our previous 12-cup coffeemaker. (yes, we know that the "cups" are not actual 8-oz cups, so no, I'm not expecting 8 oz x 12 "cups" out of a 12-cup coffeemaker. What I'm saying we don't get as many mugs of coffee from this "brewer" as we did from our previous coffeemaker that was rated as a 12-cup appliance.) That's a semi-minor negative - we just have to make coffee more often. I'm not a fan of the "flavor straw" in the lid: it just gets in the way of cleaning the lid. The removeable water reservoir - we thought that was a "plus" when we were looking at coffeemakers (thought it would make it easy to fill the appliance), but it is really just an extra thing to clean. On the other hand, I'm probably a bit more fussy about things like that because I used to analyze water samples, so if you're not thinking about bacterial growth, you might not be all that concerned with cleaning the removeable water reservoir. (But, hey, maybe you should start thinking about that - lol) The main "negative" for us is that if you are color-blind, you may have difficulty seeing the red indicator light that tells you the hot plate is still on. My husband is color-blind and red looks black to him, so the red indicator light just blends right in with the surrounding black area of the appliance. He cannot tell when the warming plate is still on or off. The light for the warming plate should either be brighter or it should be a white color like all the other indicator lights. I consider that a poorly thought-out design - but it will not impact most of the population, so it will likely not be important to the vast majority of people reading this. (NOTE to Ninja - make that dog-gone light a different color or brighter in the future and then test it on color-blind individuals.)Neutral: the permanent filter. Yes, you may have some fines in the coffee. Use a slightly coarser grind and the amount of fines will be less. We decided that the amount of fines in the bottom of the pot were not worth purchasing paper filters. It has not been difficult to decant the coffee and leave the fines behind in the pot - but maybe that has something to do with the grind we are using.