There’s been a lot of suggestions for an Aeropress, and I don’t want to retread any ground, but that’s a good suggestion. Since you said you didn’t want to rule out pour over though, I might recommend the Hario Switch, so that you can experiment with both immersion and percolation brews in just one brewer. It functions similarly to the Clever Dripper that someone else recommended, but since it’s the same shape as a V60 it has the added benefit of being able to leave the switch open and brew a standard V60.

On cold brew: I don’t recommend making it and reheating it, but some people do. At best, I would make a super concentrated cold brew (maybe 1:4 or more if I could really push it), and add hot water up to the final volume to get a hot beverage. Reheating coffee leads to it losing a lot of its volatile organic compounds that contribute to the interesting tastes and smells that you get from coffee. Cold brew is suitable for “meal prepping” your coffee though if you don’t want to make time in the morning. If you’re at all interested cold brew, I would even more strongly recommend either the Clever Dripper or Hario Switch. You can use them to filter your cold brew after it’s done steeping, which would be much more tedious in an Aeropress.

Honestly, unless you know you’re going to stick to a single brew method, I’ll vouch for the J series. It’s their oldest lineup, so I would think that it will continue to be supported with replacement burrs for the foreseeable future (though mine hasn’t needed any replacement parts at all over the course of 7 years of moderately heavy usage). I used a Jx for pour over and espresso for 5 years before changing it up, and I still think it was the most dramatic change I’ve ever made with regards to cup quality. It’s now mostly my travel coffee grinder, but I’ll still pull it out from time to time since I enjoy the ritual of hand grinding.

I can’t speak to their other grinders, but I know that Lance Hedrick has reviewed all of the more expensive (and more singularly focused) 1zpresso grinders as well across various videos on his channel.

Chiming in to provide another anecdotal experience. At a drip grind size on my 1zpresso JX, I take no longer than half a minute to grind an 18g dose of beans and it requires nearly no effort at all. If you’re trying to keep the budget under or around $200USD, the brews you get from a nice manual grinder are significantly better than what you can get from an electric grinder at a similar price point, but you are trading convenience. If you’re entertaining or brewing for more than a few people regularly though, it might be worth the tradeoff. For me, the flexibility and portability of a manual grinder were definitely a priority, since it allowed me to take a very compact brew setup while traveling so that I wouldn’t be stuck with bad coffee while backpacking/in hotels.

There’s an option to pay for a lifetime ad-free experience or a lifetime license for Sync Ultra. I found it by clicking the profile switcher in the upper left and seeing a “Remove Ads” button. Still haven’t pulled the trigger on purchasing it yet though.