Breadmaker

Just thinking of buying a bread maker - seems to be lots of choices. What should a beginner look for in a bread maker?

MY breadmaker has a variety of cycles, (including basic, sweet, pizza/dough, wheat, bake quick, jam and pasta -there are more but can't remember off the top of my head) I have never used the pasta or jam and ony used the bake cycle and didn['t reallly ike it. DOn't like the rapid cycle either. It has a fruit dispenser and makes a horizontal loaf of bread. (It is a sunbeam, can't remember the model but it makes an extra large loaf of bread- about 5 cups flour is the maximum size of loaf.

Panasonic has traditionally the biggest following and set the standard for breadmakers. NZ stopped importing them a number of years ago, but has recently started again.
Last year Consumer did a test of all the breadmakers (excluding the Panasonic as it wasn't around then) and Tefal came out the best - not up to the standard of the older Panasonics, but best of the worst, I guess.
I've had my Tefal since January and am now only doing about a loaf a week (it got hammered the first few months) and am reasonably happy with it. It is noisy (we don't set it up to bake overnight due to this), but I like the bread that comes out. (I do subscribe to Consumer and went by their recommendation, even though I was tempted to get a cheaper one to see if I'd even use it).
I also bought an older Panasonic, and hardly use that. I just don't find it that much better, but it's okay (I admit the baking bread smells nicer, but that makes it worse when waiting for it to cook than anything lol). It also takes longer.
No idea on what the new ones are like though.

I have bought a Breville one for 100$ on special. So far have made
46 loavesand 11 doughs only. yes, I write it down out of curiosity to work out the lifespan and economy of the thing.
up till now- very happy with it.

Has anyone bought one of the new Panasonics? Interested in opinions. I use a very old one, only makes one size and no auto thingee for fruit. I also have a brand new 253 which I bought a couple of years ago for $200 when Magness Benrow were selling all the remaining Panasonics in NZ but have never used it or even unpacked it as the old one goes on and on and on! Lovely bread.

We have a Tefal which I got with FlyBuys points. We haven't bought bread since getting the breadmaker. I make 5 - 6 loaves a week for the two of us. Yes, it is a bit noisy when it's in its kneading cycle, but we're used to it now. I mostly make the wholemeal loaf. Much better than bought bread.

I add an extra Tbsp of water to my bread if my bread maker is grunting. The next loaf I will put the extra water in at the start. Different batches of flour need more water than others. and go to bed lol

breville and sunbeam are the 2 i have. no problems with them. one is about 12yrs old and still going strong.