Review by Jason T. Walker "remaxtodd on twitter" : Big-Time Coffee and Decaf Coffee User

My wife and I really like the ESAM5500 as an Espresso/Cappuccino maker; however, I don't think it's a great cup-of-coffee maker. I think it's a better cappuccino maker though with nice froth that you would find with your cup from any retail coffee shop. My wife would agree with me, but she doesn't mind it being her daily cup-of-coffee maker with the ability of putting in whatever ground coffee she wants for the day in a separate 1-cup grounds opening. Probably the biggest reason I say it's not the greatest coffee maker is after it makes whatever cup you want, the coffee is really not a hot cup of coffee (even w/hottest setting). If you're driving to work in the morning and drinking your coffee on the way, you'll probably want to heat your coffee up in the microwave for 30-45 seconds before you head out the door. Again, I do like the way it makes a cup of cappuccino; however, you will need to heat your cup of cappuccino up as well!

Review by Medhat "M" : Lukewarm latte, lukewarm review

Purchased as a replacement for a 4+ year old Delonghi EAM 3200, which served faithfully until the boiler started leaking and melting the plastic below the cup warmer! Went with the Perfecta because of the double boiler (not on the 3200) and the auto-milk dispenser. First the good. It's much quieter than expected, which is great in the morning when others are asleep. I appreciate the custom settings, which allowed me to set the expected milk and espresso volumes my wife and I were used to (Starbucks grande sized). BTW, the machine also looks sharp. The unexpected drawback: it really takes until the 3rd cup in the morning for the milk to get up to a truly acceptable temperature (confirmed with a thermometer). Cup #1 in the morning in a lukewarm latte, and this is despite setting the machine temp to "hi". Latte #3 will hit 160 degrees, which is great. This almost caused us to return the machine (there's no option on this machine to manual froth to a desired temp), but I think we'll work with it and see how it goes..

Review by Billy smith : Espresso magic

Have had this machine for 15 months and 1534 shots of espresso and it still works great like the day I bought it. I only use distilled water and descale when it tells me to(shows up on digital read out). No problems ever and even though it's expensive it has saved me $6 a day from star bucks (quad grande mocha $5 +$1 tip)

-andy
11/23/2010
2863 shots of espresso and still going strong!!! In these machines I believe distilled water is the secret to longevity success.

Review by BRJR : Nice Machine

Mine, stopped frothing milk, in about 40 days after I had purchased it here from Amazon.com; but, it was somewhat easy to work with DeLonghi , at the toll free number that comes with the machine. We tried a number of things; and, when nothing resolved the problem, DeLonghi had Fedex pick up the machine from my home (they even sent me a special box to pack the unit in) and gave me a choice of two service outlets they would have it repaired at under warranty. At, the time, this was a new unit/model; and service parts had to be specially ordered --- so, it took approximately three months before the machine was delivered back to me. Any time I phoned DeLonghi, during this process, they has a status report as to what was going on; and, as it was quite a while that the machine was not in use by me, DeLonghi , even extended my warranty by the amount of time I had to go without the machine. Since it's repair, over 5 months now, the machine has been working just fine (and, I use it several times a day, 7 days a week).

Good machine; and, good product support from DeLonghi, in my opinion....