Bread machine choice -- help?

[AskingQuestionsAllTheTime]

A friend of mine has decided that he wants to make his own bread and he wants to use a bread machine. I make bread the old-fashioned way, kneading it myself, so I don't know what the good bread machines are. His email, sent after he rang me hoping I could help and I said I'd ask here, reads

"What I'm after is something that will make smallish loaves (it's just me so doesn't require hyooooooj capacity), although the ability to make enough for two to have soup and such would be nice. A small footprint would also be welcome and I'd hope to make rye bread, for example, as well as the normal stuff. Wholemeal all the way, too, since I've come to much prefer it."

Can people here offer him any help/advice about what he might buy, so that I can pass it on to him? I think he forgot to say "not costing a huge amount" too. Is there what I suppose could be called "a bachelor bread machine" that's worth having and a good deal?

Thanks, and I hope I am getting this right: I haven't started a thread before.

I bought my dh this Panasonic bread machine for his birthday and I'd say we've used it nearly every weekend for Sunday morning bread since. I can't say it's got a small footprint (I'm not sure any breadmaker does, as it's got to bake the loaf) but the bread's delicious and you can set a timer so it starts baking in the middle of the night, ready for breakfast.

Can’t you just teach him to make bread properly? Bread makers are expensive and huge and make cake-y bread and (in my experience) aren’t good with heavier flours.....

If he rises it in the fridge during the day while he’s at work, it’ll be ready to knock back and bake in the evening.

Thanks for the replies; he got discouraged by the initial lack of response and went out and bought one without waiting any longer, so I just hope he will be okay. I don't know what he has ended up with!

His email says "I've found one that seems to be well-liked by Which and Good Housekeeping, and is on sale thanks to a bashed-up box, so let's see how it turns out."

The reason he wanted a small footprint was that he has a tiny kitchen in his flat and has very limited shelf-spade for it to live on when it isn't in use, and very limited work-surfaces too.

We live more than a hundred miles apart, so teaching him how to make bread my way was a bit of a non-starter.