Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Au contraire! A great little unit for beginners..., 14 Feb 2008
Sorry, but I have to disagree strongly with the previous reviewer. Having also recieved this as a gift (golly,thanks guys!), I was very impressed with its' ease of use & the quality of the coffee out of the box. Ease of use is amazing in comparison to some other machines I've tried. Espresso is pretty good at first attempts, & the 15 bar pressure surely helps here. The more I use it, the better my coffee gets. As for the free pods -they're Illy and pretty darn good for my first experience with pods, and an absolute boon for the non cafe-head...cough, my wife...yes, I do prefer to use ground coffee but it is nice to have the choice. This is a good-looking machine with a compact footprint: it makes good coffee which can only improve as you get used to the machine, and experiment with different blends/amounts etc...
The downside - the pump is noisy in operation, but at this price for a 15 bar machine w/ heated top plate plus consummate ease of use, the noise is inconsequential IMHO. Highly recommended!
Oh, and the cup size? Real coffee should be savoured in smaller cups! Who the heck drinks proper coffee out of mugs?! Oh yeah: people who think instant is best!
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Genuine Espresso Machine, 23 Jun 2008
I decided to buy an Espresso machine after a friend at work bought one. I'm not an Espresso drinker but I love Cappuccino. I bought a £40 machine but found that the milk device was not a proper Pannarello system i.e. steam blowing through a pipe, but rather a heated plate with a daft spinning blade in the tube. Also the other parts seemed cheap. All my fault, I should have done some more research. I returned that item and bought the DeLonghi EC330. Now this is much more like it. Heavy and mostly stainless steel. The parts are much better quality and construction and the instructions are far more thorough. The whole thing is verging on the professional (from the point of view of a coffee novice anyway!)
Negatives - as listed below, the machine is quite noisey but I like that as it gives it a coffee shop atmosphere! The gap for the cups is quite small which is ok for espresso but you need low wide cups for Cappuccino. The steam spout is quite low so you need a small jug or have to place the machine at the edge of your work surface to get under it.
Positives - Clear and thorough instructions, professional quality feel to all the parts, easy to use (especially the included Illy pods). Makes lovely coffee and the milk steamer is so easy to use.
This machine looks impressive and gives great results and it feels like the real deal - don't be fooled by the cheaper imitations.
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59 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended by Which magazine, 1 Nov 2008
A Kid's Review
I brought this item from Argos (sorry Amazon!). I've used numerous espresso makers before, ranging from Krup machines costing over a thousand pounds to small Bialetti stove makers.
Quite simply this is not "the best ever" espresso maker I've used. But it is "the best for under £200"! If you dont believe me simply go to Which magazine online pay the £1 for the 30 day trial offer and look up the article in which they get the head buyer from Whittards to test these cheaper machines. Infact this machine is so good, its actually better than its more expensive bigger brother, the EC710, which makes rubbish espressos. Simply put, the other people who say this machine is crap are infact saying "I know more about decent machinary design than the worlds most prestigious consumer magazine, a magazine with more readers than any other consumer group! Not only that, I know more about coffee than the head honcho of one of the most exclusive coffee manaufacturers in the world!". But hey, if you're happy to believe those reviewers, who am I too call you a fool?
The good points:
1) Great tasting cofee.
2) Decent crema thats doesn't instantly disappear.
3) Relatively small footprint
4) Pretty looking machine
5) Takes ground coffee as well as ESE pods
The bad points:
1) Its not fully automated like the one grand machine we have in the office. With that machine you just put one scoop of ground coffee in the top and press a single button. The machine automatically preheats itself, tampers the granules into the right density, makes the coffee to the right volume and then cleans up after itself! Good luck trying to find something similar for less than £600!!
2) You need basic motor-neuron ability to use this machine, otherwise known as skill. You might screw up the first few cups, but dont be dishearted, I too messed up and I've used semi-automatic machines before.
3) It requires preheating for a decent cup. You dont actually +need+ to preheat the machine (letting some hot water run through it before making a cup), in the same way as you dont actually +need+ a decent cup of coffee. The machine still works without preheating, its just that the coffee tastes weaker and the crema isn't as thick.
4) It takes a bit of time to heat up before you can use it. But this isn't wasted time, you can be getting on with other things, like putting the grounds into the filter basket and tampering it down.
5) It wont clean up after itself >:( I have to say this is quite annoying. Cleaning up means getting a jay cloth and removing all the stuck ground bits from the machine (more hygenic than anything else), but it's still annoying. But unfortunately you're not going to find a self-cleaning espresso machine for anything close to this price, so live with it and keep that jay cloth handy!
6) Cup warmer is rubbish, but then again they all are, even on the expensive machines! Thats why you dont waste the hot water from the preheat, but use it to heat up your cup!
7) It make a lot of noise! Yes that is very true! There is no getting away from it, its noisy compared to other machines in the <£200 market.
8) The cup might vibrate when the machine is operating. This too, is very true! You'll have to resort to the motor-neuron skills you developed earlier.
9) Its not 100% made of steel, some sections are plastic and made to look like metal, but its still a very pretty looking machine!
10) It wont take big cups. But then again, I've never seen any espresso maker that does!! But thats why they're called frikkin' ESPRESSO makers and not coffee makers /percolators!!!! If you dont know what an espresso is then you should NOT be buying this machine! Let me repeat that: This is NOT A COFFEE MACHINE! Its for making 30ml shots of a highly caffeinated beverage as opposed to cup sized amounts of a weaker caffeinated drink. If you want a coffee machine/percolator then look out for something that comes with a kettle. Percolators have their uses, I'm not a snob, but this is not a percolator, mmm'kay?
Final words
Although there are many more bad points than good, its worth noting that you wont find a better machine in this price bracket! If you want a decent espresso and are willing to put the time into learning how to make one, then this is the machine for you. If you want to just put a scoop of ground coffee into the top of a machine a press a single button. Then get a better paid job!
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