This superauto delivers café variety at home without the café footprint anxiety, genuinely intuitive controls, and oat milk that froths instead of separates. The cold brew mode sounds like a coup but underwhelms in practice (pull shots over ice instead), and you'll waste a pound of beans dialing in your grind before the espresso hits its stride. The grinder dial jams if you adjust it mid-grind, which is a design flaw you'll learn to work around. For someone who wants fifty drink recipes, easy daily cleaning, and quality espresso once the setup phase is over, this is a strong buy. If you need plug-and-play simplicity or genuinely good cold brew, keep looking.
The S8 is what you buy when you've tasted enough mediocre home espresso to know the difference matters. It pulls genuinely excellent shots, owners doing side-by-side tests notice the upgrade immediately, but the drip tray fills with water constantly even when you're catching grounds, so you're emptying it every few drinks whether you spilled or not. That quirk won't ruin mornings, but it will make you mutter twice a day. Buy this if cafe-quality shots justify the premium and you can live with frequent tray duty; skip if you want simpler maintenance or aren't sure you'll taste the upgrade.