It is as advertised and reliable.

I needed this coffee percolator/urn for just one event, so I didn't want to spend a lot. This coffee urn seemed like the best in its price range.

The spigot is too low to fit paper hot drink cups under the spigot. There is an advantage: you are able to drain more coffee out of the urn without tipping it towards you, since the spigot is placed low on the urn.

But this posed a dilemma- If we put the urn on the edge of the counter, where guests had room to place a hot cup under the spigot, we risked guests touching the hot exterior of the urn and burning themselves, or, worse, tipping the urn over and spilling scalding coffee on themselves and others. The lid is locked, but not tightly, and all the coffee could easily spill from a tipped urn (which is normal for all urns.)

So I put the urn on a wooden box that I had used to display items at a conference years ago. As you can see in the photo, the box solved our problem. Everyone safely enjoyed the coffee, and we had a great brunch event.

The urn is easy to use and clean. You don't need paper filters. The basket has fill lines for coffee so you know how much coffee to use for different numbers of cups. One caveat is that I found the coffee made to the levels marked on the basket was a bit weak for my taste. I like a string cup of coffee, so next time I would add a bit more than the recommended amount of coffee.

I just got this 3 days ago and have made 3 pots of coffee so far.
I burnt my tongue on the very first sip of coffee because it was so hot.
It takes about 30 minutes for my large mug of coffee to cool down until I can drink it safely without burning my tongue.
I really like the percolator because it keeps recirculating the water over the grounds making the coffee stronger while using less actual coffee grounds.
You know when the coffee is done because it stops percolating.
There is a groove on the bottom of the inside of the percolator so if any grounds get through the basket, they will settle in this section and won't pour out the spout.
It keeps the coffee extremely hot as long as you have it plugged in and coffee in it. It doesn't burn the coffee like a regular coffee maker will do.
I would of given it a 5 rating but the lid does not lock in place as described on Amazon's page. It just turns into a slot and can easily come off and if tipped over, it will still leak even with the lid in place. The lid is also not heat resistant as described on the Amazon page. The lid is just plastic and the coffee is percolated up against it so when the coffee is hot, the lid gets hot.
If you accidentally knock it over, DON'T try to grab it because you will burn yourself since the only spot that doesn't get hot is the base. Even the plastic handles get pretty warm.
The spout works really well but since it is really low, you have to slide the percolator close to the edge of the counter to get a large cup under the spout. This may be hard to do because the plug cord is somewhat short so you need a electrical outlet close to where you want to pour your coffee. It is just long enough to do this on a standard kitchen counter (from the back edge of the counter to the front edge of the counter). However, doing this, you truly take a chance of knocking it over onto yourself and having extremely hot coffee leaking out on you since the lid does not lock into place and still leaks even when in place and tipped over!
3 things would truly make this a GREAT percolator:
1. give it taller legs so you can get large coffee mugs under the spout without having to slide the percolator close to the edge of the counter.
2. Actually make the lid lock with some kind of stop so it clicks into place.
3. Make the lid insulated so it doesn't get hot from the coffee percolating up against it.
You can't make it truly spill proof because the heat and steam would build up inside and make the lid explode off unless you make some kind of pressure release in the lid.
I would still recommend this percolator because I really do like it, but I would also warm people of the hazards of it being extremely hot.

We make 60-100+ cups of coffee at our Church at least once a week, Every week! The old one worked for 10 years so we got Another one ðŸ‘ðŸ‘ðŸ‘ðŸ'

Could use a second one! Great.