For this budget price range, it does the job. I was actually quite surprised how much crud is in my tap water. The main issue I have is that the way these are built to auto shut off is when the temperature gets above a certain range. I've found that it starts burning the leftover crud from the water and creates fumes which leaches back into the water making it taste gross and smell bad but later seems to evaporate off after a few days. After I get a gallon distilled I run it through my ceramic filter for drinking and it tastes great. If I'm by my machine and I catch it in time to turn it off before it boils all the water out it doesnt taste or smell bad.
The other small issues are that this thing is pretty noisy and blows a decent amount of heat off the top of the unit. I originally had it in a small plant room but the tempuratures were reaching almost 90 degrees so I had to put it on my kitchen counter where it takes up quite a bit of space.
It takes the machine about 3.5 to 4 hours to distill 1 gallon. I've found that starting with hot tap water speeds it up a bit, maybe 30min or so. I've run this machine almost everyday since I got it 2 months ago, sometimes 3-4 gallons in one day and it's been a champ. Cleaning it is fairly easy, I put enough water in the bottom to cover it by about half an inch then add a splash of distilled white vinegar and scrub it then let it sit for a few minutes and scrub again until all the crud is cleaned off. I clean it in-between every gallon because my tap water is that disgusting. Then we distill again...
Overall I'm quite pleased with this water distiller at this price despite the few annoyances.