Choosing between Sodastream products is obviously a matter of life and death, judging by the Amazon reviews. If you want carbonated water or other drinks but you don’t want to buy hundreds of plastic bottles a year – maybe you want to be environmentally friendly, maybe you just don’t have the space for all those bottles – Sodastream is the biggest name in the game, with its electricity free, sleekly designed models. Also, what a great name, right? You can’t hear it without knowing what it’s about, even though it didn’t actually mean anything before they came up with it. Clever stuff.
Fountain Jet
The Sodastream Fountain Jet is the basic model starter model. It comes in three different colours and is affordable. It’s simple but effective, providing you with carbonated drinks at the touch of a button. The bottle is not dishwasher friendly so you’ll have to wash it by hand. Also, it only comes with one of these bottles, so if you have a lot of people in your house who want carbonated water you’ll have to buy a couple of extra ones. Its compact size means it’s very portable, so you can take it along to a barbecue or party.
It comes with a 60 Litre Carbonator, which you can exchange for a new one when it runs out. You can get the first replacement free by taking it to an exchange point. Sodastream recycle all their carbonator bottles – great for the environment. It can also take the larger 130 Litre Carbonators if you find that the 60 litre ones are running out too quickly.
It’s very easy to use, although the mechanism for attaching a bottle is not quite as simple as that found on later models. Nonetheless, with no clean up and carbonation at the touch of a button, this is a simple way to get cheap carbonated water in an ecofriendly fashion.
Dynamo
This is a slightly larger Sodastream. It comes in two different colours and is slightly more expensive, with a sturdier construction which is guaranteed to last a lifetime, even if you have a bunch of kids dropping it on the floor, or playing football with it or something. Whatever it is kids do these days.
It also comes with two bottles as standard, so if you need two or more it might be better to go for this one than the Fountain Jet model. Like all standard plastic Sodastream bottles, they’re not dishwasher friendly. However, if you absolutely must have dishwasher friendly bottles you can buy them from Sodastream, so if you’re buying spare bottles anyway this is a good solution.
A slight downside is that it comes with a 130 Litre Carbonator. This might not immediately sound like a downside but many retailers don’t carry replacement 130 Litre Carbonators and won’t exchange a 130 Litre bottle for a 60 Litre one, so you might wind up with an empty carbonator that no-one will take. Because of this, it’s best to check first if you have a retailer nearby which stocks or will exchange 130 Litre Carbonators before buying the Sodastream Dynamo. You can still exchange it via postage if you don’t mind a bit of a wait.
The Dynamo has a simpler feature for attaching and removing bottles, with a lever on top of the unit making the whole process easier, so if you have any problems with your hands, such as arthritis, this may be a better choice for you than the Fountain Jet.
The Dynamo is more expensive than the Fountain Jet due to its sturdier construction, extra bottle and larger 130 Litre Carbonator. However, you get what you pay for! It’s not an unreasonable extra price given the extra accessories, so if you do need any of those things, this is the Sodastream model for you.
Conclusion
Since I’m the only one in my family who drinks a lot of sparkling water and I don’t need any of the flavourings on offer (so I don’t need to thoroughly clean bottles between uses), I would opt for the Fountain Jet model. It may not be quite as aesthetically pleasing as the Dynamo but it has everything I need at a lower price. The smaller, 60 Litre Carbonator is fine with me, as I don’t get through much of it on my own and there are more retailers near me that stock replacements so that I don’t have to get in the car or head to the pot office when I get through a Carbonator.