iSoda DrinkMate Mini Hand Held Carbonated Soda Maker, Silver/White

I come from New York and every once in a while, I have an overpowering NEED for a local delicacy called an "egg cream". An Egg Cream, for those who don't know about it, has no eggs in it and no cream. What it does have is a particular brand of chocolate syrup (Fox's U-Bet), some milk and a good seltzer. We used to buy seltzer in a squirt bottle...the type the old time comedy movies use for fights. Those bottles aren't around any more and until getting this unit, I tried making an egg cream with sparkling water, with Perrier, etc. They were OK, but you really need a pressurized seltzer to do it right. This works. YEA!!!! It also has a very small footprint. I thought about getting a soda stream machine but it takes up a lot of room. This one doesn't. It also holds the bubbles for a couple of days, allowing me to binge. The unit consists of a plastic bottle and a charging cap that accepts a CO2 cartridge. The unit comes with six cartridges. You can get other, cheap, cartridges here on Amazon. It comes to about 43 cents a charge. You can control the amount of fizz by the amount of water you put in the bottle. There are two lines on the bottle. One for mega fizz and the other for just ok fizz. I use the mega fizz. If an egg cream doesn't have a good head, it isn't worth anything. One of the joys of making one is as the head rises in the glass, seeing if you can get your mouth to the top of the glass to sip the head off before it spills over the top. OK...I don't get out much. I entertain easily. Anyway, after you put the COLD (the colder the better) water into the bottle, you put the charging cap on, drop in the cartridge and twist. It doesn't seem like anything has happened, so don't worry if you don't see fizzing all over the place. Once you have done that, shake the bottle a little and then untwist the cap. The water will fizz like crazy. Then you can use whatever amount you want and then you can put on the other cap that comes with it for storage in the fridge. It's a simple gadget, but it works. I can't ask for any more than that.

This soda maker is easy to use!Which star to give? Overall, as the product:HandheldCartridgesPlastic BottleEasy useDesign / ColorVersatilityI gave it 5*COMPARED to other more sofisticated method, I give it 4*:Glass bottle (Penguin)CO holding more charged (approx 60)Money value per sodaSPARKLE INTENSITY!I prefer PENGUIN! Cheaper per drink.See, if you wish a SPARKLE like Geyser, the Penguin may do. If you prefer PELEGRÍNO this one is your solution, same as PERRIER which are not so strongly sparkled.Yet the sparkles even at the PENGUIN can be reduced. The price/comparison took me a humongous amount of investment to make the prior choice: to go by purchasing the Penguin! Cents opposite to dollar!Yet, if you wish a sparkle from time to time, this one is great! You can also sparkle any other liquid beverage! Not so with the Penguin which sparkles only water!

I regret buying this, because (1) despite prime, it cannot be returned; (2) crtriges are NON-standard, so you're stuck with iSoda proprietary ones; (3) the worst part - carbonation is barely noticeable and the water is not fizzy at all; (4) you have to open the bottle to put a cap on, so you lose whatever little CO2 pressure it has built; (5) in the process, gas escapes.

The unit is fun to use but, after the novelty wears off, it's far more expensive to use than to buy sodas in your local market. The replacement cartridges were sixty cents per cartridge and then, lo and behold, the manufacturer raised the price of their replacement cartridges to $1.40 per.I'll try and find some 8g cartridges of food-grade CO2 instead on the open market.

I purchased this hoping I could get sparkling water for a cheaper price, but this doesn't work as well as I expected it to work. I've used a soda stream before and that device is really nice. If I were to compare the carbonation to a sodastream, this product would only reach a quarter of the carbonation. It also leaks when you use it, so I think thats why it doesn't work as well.

I bought this item because I had over 70 co2 cartridges I got tired of looking at. I originally had a Hamilton Beech Fizini. It worked much better but had the same flaw in reverse this one does. The co2 bottles from Leeland have a quality assurance issue. Some are longer than others. In the fizini, the door would get jammed and I had to finally cut the door so I could pry it open, eventually causing it to fail. It did work well with the right sized cartridges.On the iSoda, the issue is reversed. Long cartridges work. I had to put a dime over the short ones to get them to work. If that were the only issue, I would have been happy. There is a pressure relief valve that opens during carbonization. In other words, the co2 is released into the air with a small bit going into the water. I use two cartridges on each attempt and the water is still sort of flat. Also, it leaks water all over. do it over the sink. When I tried to save some water in the bottle they provided, the fizz went out. The silicone gasket was present, so that is not the issue. I think the bottle is too thin.To sum it up, do not buy this unless you got Secret Santa at work for someone you don't like. For yourself, buy a real soda charger or siphon or just buy the carbonated water at Krogers for 88 cents for 2 liters.

Absolutely in love with this. I use the knock off canisters that are a little shorter and just stack two dimes on top- works like a charm! And makes drinking enough water much more palatable after severe morning sickness gave me a major aversion to plain water. I’m a little disappointed that the bottle makes less than a full liter (850mL) but that’s just for my convenience so I don’t have to do math to keep track of my water intake ha