This is my first bread maker. The machine feels very solid mechanically, does not feel like a plastic mess, and it also stands solidly on a work surface during kneading. There is a fairly extensive recipe list with the machine, which correspond to the various pre-programmed baking programs. With most programs you can choose several sizes, and some you can set so that the machine only starts after a programmed time.
That's where my comments begin. It is completely unclear to me why you can set some programs with a timer and others not. So if you want to set up the machine on Saturday evening so that you can eat just warm white bread on Sunday afternoon, fine - but if you want that with a bread mix or dough (so that the machine only kneads) it is bad luck for the gnomes. That sort of infantilization of the user is consistent throughout the rest of the machine. You cannot set your own program anywhere or make changes to existing programs, except (for some recipes) the size and (for some recipes) the brownness.
Then there is the display, which is simply insufficient for a premium device in its class in 2023. It is a 1980s fixed LCD display without lighting, which is also more or less flat at the back on top of a fairly high device. So if the machine is on a kitchen worktop, you can hardly see what is written on some lines of the display, also because of the shadows that fall on the LCD display due to the (too) narrow border all around. A euro more in production costs for a more ergonomic display would have been appropriate here.
The kneading hook is tight enough to remove the bread from the mold without the kneading hook remaining in the bread. After that, you have to scrape the kneading hook clean with a skewer every time to prevent the build-up of crusts in the nooks and crannies. That could have been better.
I also wonder how many loaves of bread they bake themselves with this machine at Panasonic, and whether they really haven't noticed that the design of the handle of the tin could simply have been a lot better. After baking, you take the bread out of the machine with oven gloves on the handle, and then you pour it out on a rack to cool down. To do this, of course, you have to turn the can, so that the handle hangs down and the bread remains in the handle. So you always have to keep the handle out of the way with your oven gloves to get the bread out. If they had made a small kink in the handle so that you can fix the handle flat by pushing it behind a notch in the can with that kink, that fiddling would have been easily avoided.
In short, in terms of industrial design, this machine has stuck in the 90s.
That being said, as long as you use the device within the parameters of the preconceived recipes and don't look too closely at ease of use, the results are very good. Good rise, perfect browning, good recipes. (do add a bread improver, the manual says nothing about that). Yeast is added automatically.
All in all, 8 out of 10. Good results but not enough attention to detail to get a really high mark. But in my search I couldn't find a machine on the market that would score higher on me, so maybe my expectations aren't realistic.
