Others say...

"Could be my dream machine, but isn't"
I baked my own bread for years; then due to pressures of work etc. quit for years, before buying this machine (but my old know-how is still intact).

I think the manufacturer has two potential markets for this machine, both large, and both of which could be served at once. Neither of them is served well.

One market is people who want fresh bread made conveniently: They want to just put the ingredients in the pan, press a button, and a few hours later have a loaf of bread. My guess is that many of them have never made bread by hand, and are therefore perhaps not too particular about the quality.

The other market is people who have often hand made bread in the past, but due to age or injury (things like arthritis or carpal tunnel or even a temporary wrist sprain) cannot do the rather heavy job of long kneading.

A major problem for both markets is that the machine is not truly automatic if you want best results. It does not mix as thoroughly as it should. You need to do some premixing of ingredients before putting them in the pan, then scrape down the pan once or twice toward the end of kneading.

Then, the fruits and nuts dispenser does not work well. Not only does it hold only about 2/3 cup of ingredients, most get kneaded only onto the outside of the loaf, where of course they burn during baking. Doing your own premixing is light work, and takes place at or near the beginning of the cycle, so it's perfectly feasible. You can also hand knead in the fruits/nuts only. Still, the machine should have a better mixer and a larger dispenser. Especially for people who want to use the timer to have bread ready when they get up, or when they get home from work.

Then, the machine allows almost _no_ room for flexibility in terms of quantity of ingredients or rising time. Truly handmade bread is extremely flexible. If the dough looks wet, you just knead in a little more flour (for some recipes, significantly more). You can sort of do this with the machine, but only up to a point.

Most of all, with handmade bread, the rising time is entirely flexible. If the first, second, or (if you do one) the third rising is slow (you can tell if the dough has risen enough by poking your fingers into it and seeing how slowly it bounces back; when it fails to bounce it has risen enough), you can just leave the dough alone for another ten minutes or another hour, whatever it takes. If you put lots of sugar or butter or heavy ingredients like nuts in the dough, it will take longer to rise, but it _will_ eventually rise light enough. If the room is cold, if you kill part of your yeast, the dough will still rise given enough time. And my experience with handmade bread is that rising times for the different stages can differ with every making of the same recipe, even if you are a skilled bread maker.

Although this machine has a nice cozy dough-rising chamber (better than any drafty room!), rising times are completely inflexible. When the timer says it's time to punch down the dough after any given rising, the machine punches it down. So, in spite of the fact that I've always been very careful about measurements, used the correct yeast, used bread flour, made sure all ingredients were at room temperature, only used small amounts of nuts etc., and made sure the room was at room temperature--half my loaves have been leaden.

The manufacturer could easily take care of this by making the machine a lot simpler to use. Instead of _forcing_ people to either use one of their preprogrammed cycles, or program an inflexible cycle of their own, they could have a more manual option.

The way I'd set it up, if I were the engineer (I hope the manufacturer reads Amazon reviews), would be to allow an option to entirely decouple the mixing stage, the first rising stage, the second rising stage, and the third rising stage from each other. (The current Dough Only cycle does not really do this.) So, the user would put the ingredients in the pan, then press a Mix/Knead button. The machine could go for its standard time, then stop, beeping to notify the user. The user could then check the dough and if necessary press a Knead More button to specify a certain number of more minutes of kneading, and if necessary add more flour. When the bread was kneaded enough, they'd press a button for First Rise. Again, the machine would allow its standard time, stop, and beep. The user would press their fingers into the dough and press either a Rise More or a Punch Down button as needed. The same for the second rising, and the third.

This would do an excellent job of satisfying the needs of people who just don't want to physically knead the bread, but want control over the process. Meanwhile, the current automated cycles would still be there for people who like them-which I do not.

With this machine, I also advise taking the dough out of the pan before the final rising and shaping it into a loaf yourself, even if you bake it in the machine rather than a conventional oven. (At this stage it does not matter if you accidentally pull out the paddle.) If you just leave the dough there, you get a rather formless, aysmmetrical lumpy loaf instead of a well-shaped plain loaf.

The machine's baking is rather peculiar. The manufacturer does allow a Bake More option, which is essential. But the standard method of tapping the top of the loaf with your fingers to see if it's done (it should sound hollow) which works well with a conventional oven, does not work for this machine. An oven bakes the bread most on the top; this machine bakes it most on the sides and bottom, where you can neither see nor tap it. I am not sure that could be changed. You do always have the option of baking in a conventional oven.

There are three things that should be changed, especially if the manufacturer wants to appeal to an elderly market--but they'd help everyone. First, make the manual easier to understand.

Second, make the display readable. There is nothing wrong with my eyesight, but reading gray on a slightly lighter gray background is a strain for anyone. You also have to look straight down on the display to read it. If the machine is placed on the average kitchen counter, this takes a tall man; a short woman can forget about reading the display unless she puts the machine on a lower table. The manufacturer should have a really strong contrast in the display, preferably something like electric blue text on a white background, or bright orange on a black background.

In short I hoped to be delighted with this machine. I expected to need to learn how to use it, and I bought several books on bread machine baking to help. I read through all the advice and tips before trying to bake a single loaf, and I follow the recipes very carefully. But after some weeks of using the machine I am getting very frustrated with it. My elderly father was thrilled at the prospect of getting some homemade bread, as was my elderly mother-in-law. When I bought this machine, I thought how nice it would be if I could make them both bread frequently, without my devoting all day to it every time.

I recently had two tries at making my father bread machine pannetone. Both of them turned out so leaden they had to be thrown away; even though I'd made the same recipe for myself with the machine (the results were somewhat heavy, but at least edible). I finally I gave up and spent a Sunday hand making him three different loaves of white bread from the same recipe. (He was becoming very disappointed because I kept promising him bread I didn't deliver; and I figured at this rate it will take me weeks more to reliably get a good loaf out of this machine. If I ever do.) One loaf was plain, one was a cinnamon-raisin roll, and one was a chocolate-walnut roll.

And that is the other thing this machine will not do-give you more than one loaf. If it had a really strong mixer you could put in enough ingredients for two loaves (or even three) and bake them in a conventional oven. It doesn't. You either get one big loaf or one regular loaf. So that's the other feature I'd request-a machine that can handle mixing at least a six-cups-of-flour/two-loaf recipe. If you spend all day making bread, you should at least get more than one loaf for your time.

In short, the manufacturer could fulfill my "dreams" adequately with much more flexible timing, a stronger mixer, and a readable display. Let's hope they put those improvements in the next version.

"Great machine, great manual"
Litmus test: I nailed a great loaf on my first attempt.

This machine is in a different league from my old Sunbeam. It comes with a bunch of preset cycles, but you can set the duration of individual stages (e.g. "3rd Rise").

The manual is well written. Not only is it full of useful information, but it is also a pleasant read; manuals nowadays are often very poorly translated into English, and you have to spend a long time trying to figure out what they're trying to say. This one is great in comparison.

So far I've had no problems with belts, or anything else. It really works well. That said, a couple of suggestions:

1) Stick around for the first few minutes of kneading. You may have to push some dry ingredients off the corner of the pan with the handle of a wooden spoon. The pan is longer than in most breadmakers, and dough may stick furthest from the paddle. Once the machine develops the ball, though, the problem goes away.

2) If the machine is not in a very well-lit area, you may have some difficulty seeing the LCD panel and seeing the bread inside the window. I fixed that by keeping a $1 flashlight close to the bread machine.

3) Pay attention to the table in the manual with equivalences between different kinds of yeast. That may make the difference between getting a loaf to be proud of and a loaf to be scared of...

"Works Better Then Any Other Bread Machine"
I am so inpressed with the T4000 bread machine and all that it can do. I used to have a bread machine made by procter and with it the dough would be too heavy for the motor. Now with the T400 I don't have that problem. I really like the fact that you can pause it when you need too and also store your own recipes into the unit.

"But read the directions first."
What a wonderful whizzer machine. We have made bread by hand for years, at least five loaves at a time. This is great to have fresh bread as you need it. Get large produce bags from your super market to store the big loaf in. Scrape dough down after mixing and into first kneading to make sure all flour is incorporated in the dough. Your house will smell so inviting.

"Really is a dream"
I was initially concerned over the heavily discounted price of this machine, but now that I have it, it really is a dream machine. The controls are easy to use, yet still allow easy customization. I would definitely recommend this machine to anyone looking for a high quality bread machine.