I’m an advocate for separate grinder and espresso machines, just seems like an unnecessary complication, and the combo machines seem to take up more space than both the dedicated ones.
If you are looking at the lower end of the market, spare parts and repairability are often nonexistent or afterthoughts at best. If combo machine breaks you now have to get another combo or buy the separates, and even the best value combo is more $ than comparable separates.
Ooh not sure we have those in the UK, we do have San Francisco Bay coffee beans which are good but Lavazza is smoother. I did wonder if the San Fran was just for us in Europe so we had “Exotic American” coffee.