Having ran the 480 for two seasons, we are fairly happy with the machine overall. Offering a hybrid thrashing system at a reasonable price.
It has plenty of power coming from its cat c9 lump, ive yet to bring it to its knees even when chopping wheat and unloading, there is plenty of power reserve.

Straw quality is pretty good in any cereal crop, with all of our straw going for use in a piggery with no complaints.

Vario header enables uniform feed into the machine in all crop types, although a little time consuming swapping to and from osr/cereals. Especially in a harvest like 2013 where we found ourselves jumping between crop types pretty much daily!

Cab is nicely laid out with plenty of room, nice environment to spend long days within, easy access to machine information and adjustments via cebis terminal. Very simple to operate and the all essential buttons are ergonomically positioned for the operator.

Active spreader seems to offer an even spread of chopped material over full cutterbar working width.

All in all a good, simple hybrid combine, with good output, fairly simple drive lines, and pretty affordable. Only gripes are that it seems be abit harsher on the grain than some other brands of combine (we find this with all claas machines). Always seems to be a compromise between cracked grain or a dirtier sample, no matter adjustments are made, its always abit of a juggle.
Other than this, its a good machine, coming into its own in damp conditions, and it hasnt needed a spanner to it in 500 hours, apart from routine maintenance which is easy and accessible.