Ice-and-Salt: This style of ice cream machine requires ice and rock salt to make the liquid cold enough to freeze. Like compressors, there's no pre-freezing required, but they're more affordable.

Hamilton Beach 4-quart old-fashioned ice cream maker: I don't have much bad to say bout this $70 old-school ice cream machine. It came together easily and worked well.

The Ninja Swirl by Creami is currently available for $350 and features an impressive 13 programs for making various frozen ...