Expert review Philips 4300 EP4349/70

I notice that the box isn't as heavy as I thought. In general, coffee machines are quite heavy. I take the machine out of the box and see that it's a compact fully-automatic machine. The coffee machine has touch buttons and a small display. In the box, I find an AquaClean water filter, the LatteGo milk system, and a scoop for the coffee and the manual.

I have to go through a couple of steps before I can enjoy a cup of coffee with this fully-automatic machine as well. I do this by placing the AquaClean water filter into the water tank and having the machine rinse thoroughly. It takes about 10 minutes to get it ready for use, which is pretty fast in my opinion. Now, it's time to put the coffee beans in the bean hopper and make the first cup of coffee.

The machine has 8 coffee specialties. On the display, you can directly choose an espresso, regular coffee, cappuccino, or a latte macchiato. First, I make a coffee. I adjust it according to my own preference right away. I choose between 5 coffee strengths and 5 different volumes, varying from 100 to 220ml. And lastly, I can choose if I want to make this recipe for 1 or 2 cups. I save the recipe under one of the user profiles, the blue, green, or guest profile. Grinding the beans is quite loud.

I can easily click the LatteGo system onto the hot water outlet after which I fill it with milk. I also adjust the recipe for milk specialties. During the last step, I can change the amount of milk and foam to anything between 80 and 340ml. The coffee machine will do the rest of the work. With some coffees, I still have milk left in the milk reservoir. I don't want to throw this out, so I put the LatteGo system in the fridge for later use. In other cases, I clean the system right away. I easily rinse everything under the faucet. I also like to rinse the system, which isn't offered by the machine automatically. I have to select 'clean' followed by 'quick rinse'.

What I like, is that the machine is very user-friendly. You can directly choose all pre-programmed coffees like espresso, regular coffee, americano, cappuccino, latte macchiato, and cafe au lait. The display shows an explanation if necessary, and keeps you up to date while preparing coffee. Because I placed the AquaClean water filter in the machine in the beginning, I don't have to descale the machine as often. That's nice.