ECAM23460S Digital Super Automatic Machine with Lattecrema System, Silver

After six weeks, we’re very happy with this machine. My wife fell in love with a superauto machine in a hotel in Europe, and she's never learned how to operate my high end, classic espresso machine, which doesn’t fit well in the kitchen anyway. So we bought this one. It arrived very well-packaged, and it probably took maybe 20 minutes to get all the components unpacked and assembled. It then took another hour or so of playing with it to understand how the various settings work. Since then, it’s been nothing but a lot of good coffee. Good: --Machine is easy to use, even though it offers many options: ristretto? Americano? something in between? stronger? weaker? It can do it. --The separate hopper for ground coffee is very convenient when we need to make decaf; we grind beans to order as needed. The ground coffee hopper is single-cup, so it’s easy to change from one bean to another. --machine looks good in the kitchen, and it’s reasonably compact for what it does --machine heats up quickly, so we don’t have to wait long for coffee --machine turns itself off automatically after about 10 minutes of non-use. --although some reviewers say that beans don’t always feed into the hopper, we have seen no sign of that problem. --the pour spouts adjust up and down easily, making it easy to switch from smaller espresso cups to larger mugs. -- most important, the coffee is excellent, with a nice, reliable crema. Bad: --water reservoir could be a little bigger, but refilling is easy and only takes a couple of minutes (pull tank, walk to sink, fill tank, walk back to machine and reinsert). --its height only leaves about six inches clearance under the cabinet above it, which makes it a little more awkward to add coffee to the hopper: Instead of just pouring coffee in, I use a scoop. -- With the main hopper, there’s no easy way to know how much coffee is in there except by grinding until it runs out. --The descaling process is a small nuisance, though probably vital for keeping the machine going. The process takes maybe 30 minutes and mostly runs on its own, but make sure you have a large container to collect a tank's worth of water. Delonghi's EcoDecalc descaling fluid does the job, but at ~$3.75 per run, it's a little pricey. The machine nagged us to descale after about six weeks of use. It’s too soon to know how reliable it will be – this is a pretty complicated piece of equipment, so it’s not likely to be problem-free forever. But so far, it’s a great success. Update, April 2020: Our machine, purchased July, 2017 and used almost daily, still works as well as ever. Update, April 2023: I don't want to jinx it, but this machine is still chugging along after more than 5 years, still getting a lot of use. The one small issue we've been seeing lately is that since we moved it from one house to another, the grinder tends to run on longer than it used to. That's not a problem for us because we only put in beans for one cup at a time (sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, sometimes caf, sometimes decaf, etc.), but if we had more beans in the hopper, it might be a problem.

Our old De'longhi died... very sad day. We debated on getting another exactly like it, but chose this new one. This one is more compact, the milk frothing is superior (more micro-bubble foam), built in water filter, and I got the extended warranty. I would recommend the warranty. Old model was also fantastic, but no water filter, and it did go for service in Dallas TX twice (first time under warranty, second time not due to time). We have one machine at the office (the old design), one at home (this one), and make at least 12 drinks a day. Yes, they are expensive machines, but consider the cost of a coffee from that burnt beans reindeer place x 12/day (less the cost of your favorite beans) and it isn't long before you are actually saving money by spending the big bucks at home instead of that other buck place. Also, I was in one of those fancy kitchen gadget stores this last weekend. They were selling a jura comparable machine for $1990, and some clever fellow was listening to the pitch on it. I kept my mouth shut, as it would be rude to say (BUY ON AMAZON FOOL) and get a De'Longhi.

Purchased the De'Longhi after extensive research and reading previous reviews. The product performs as promised plus some. Between my daughter and I the machine has paid for itself within a month and a half from not having to buy "fru fru" drinks. I know what is going into our drinks so know it's healthier without chemicals. I say as promised but there have been minor hiccups the trouble shooting recommendations in owners manual quickly resolved. I stand by as promised for the fact that they add trouble shooting in owners manual which indicates that there are some expectations of trouble. I have not had the programming problems previously stated. It may be that by reading the reviews I was forewarned of the problems which encouraged me to do additional research and watch videos. I felt it was simple to program with the exception that the dial was "too sensitive". Because of the sensitivity (was warned about in previous review and they weren't kidding) I accidentally selected the wrong language and had to review how to change it back to English. The positive there is I learned words in second language 😀 You can find anything on the internet. I do not find cleaning the milk container an inconvenience it actually runs hot water through so I programmed my settings for a little stronger coffee than usual and the end product is perfect. The extra water doesn't go to waste. My future recommendations to De'Longhi is to find a way to make the water tank a bigger so you don't have to fill as often. Completely satisfied with no regrets.

For a morning mocha: * Turn on machine (it will prime itself and shoot out water into the drip tray, or into a cup if you remembered) and put your coffee cup on the warmer on top of the machine, and the machine will warm up for about a minute as you get your other things ready * Get milk tank and chocolate sauce from fridge * Snap milk tank onto the left nozzle on front of machine, and make sure the dial is set to the foam level you want * Put your cup under all three nozzles--(one milk, two coffee) * You can adjust for the height of your cup by moving the nozzles up and down; cups taller than 6" will not fit standing up, and cups taller than 6.5" or so probably won't even fit at an angle. Lowering the nozzle as far as possible into your cup is supposed to make better crema, so I do that * If it isn't already set from the last time you used it, set the center dial on the machine for the correct amount of coffee you want (I like extra long, which is about 4 oz.) and, if you need to, * Press the center dial (where the beans are) to select coffee strength, from extra mild to extra strong * Press "Cappuccino" * The machine will shoot out steamed milk first, and stop at the preset level or the level you customized, and then your custom coffee will drizzle in after that. There will be a message on the display with "loading" bars, just like for software installation :) * Move coffee cup, place 4+-oz heat-resistant cup under milk nozzle, turn foam dial on milk tank to "CLEAN." The machine will automatically shoot water through the top of the milk tank mechanism, and you don't want that in your drink! * Put chocolate sauce into your coffee and stir * Turn the machine off (it will rinse itself again) * Remove tank and wipe off the milk nozzle that's on the main machine * Put tank and chocolate sauce back into fridge * Dump and rinse the cup you used for rinse water * Drink coffee I may have missed a couple of steps (I'm new at this), but you'll have to do something like that every time you make a drink with milk in it. It doesn't take too long and you can leave it alone most of the time as long as you don't forget to clean the milk nozzle and put the tank back in the fridge! I requested this machine so that I could save time in the morning, and make repeatable drinks, and save money. The morning time investment is VERY IMPORTANT(!!!) to me. I am always late. I know I'm not alone in those things, so I thought I'd share. You can set up the machine the night before using auto-start, putting a cup on the warmer, and making sure the water tank and bean holder are full, which will shave off a minute or two. The cup warmer won't really make a difference if you use it only for the couple of minutes that the coffee is ... espressing. To some extent, this machine takes as much time as my AeroPress; it just moves the work to another part of the day, and I am totally happy with that. There are cleaning, filtering, descaling and other maintenance tasks for this machine that are more involved than those for any other coffeemaker I've used, but fortunately they can pretty much all be taken care of at night or on the weekend. PROS: Very fast, very little user input required once preferences are set up One-touch, no need to move cups Almost everything is automated (right down to the descaling schedule) The drip tray is big enough to hold quite a bit of water, so forgetting to put a cup under the rinse water isn't the end of the world So customizable! The steamed/frothed milk is ennnnnchannnntinnng. I am so happy with the consistency of it--I use soy milk and I've tried maybe six other methods of frothing milk, and none of them cut it. At all. I set this machine to medium foam and the texture is amazing. CONS: The milk temperature isn't adjustable, and it isn't as hot as I'd like (although the coffee temp can be raised to compensate) It's very big, tall, deep The menu wheel is sensitive but sometimes takes a moment to respond, so it sometimes doesn't do anything, then skips over a few choices Takes quite awhile to set up at first It can only accommodate about a 6"-tall cup The cup warmer doesn't warm that much of the cup unless you leave it there for quite some time The menu isn't as straightforward as it should be for something this expensive Rinses constantly (!!) so if you haven't used it much yet, or you're very tired, it might shoot out hot water when you aren't expecting it (and I can't find a place to press "stop" or "pause") Takes time to figure it out Okay, so! I watched videos before receiving this machine, and I read the Getting Started booklet. Neither one really showed what would actually happen when I set up the machine. I had a lot of false starts because the booklet isn't linear, and the machine doesn't walk you through setup as I expected from the videos I watched. The documentation has a LOT of information, but you will have to skip around from chapter to chapter to find what you need, and if you're like me you're probably going to get rinse water in your frothed soymilk. Give yourself an hour and maybe some less-expensive coffee to experiment with. The machine comes with a starter kit that includes a couple of spare parts, descaler fluid and a water filter. Very nice! Also, the manual has a water hardness test taped into it, so you can test the hardness of your water, and change the machine's water-hardness setting (although I'm not sure how filtering affects this setting). I believe the setting is only used to determine the descaling schedule, though, so it probably doesn't matter too much. The machine is not one that you would tell a guest to figure out on their own. You will most likely have to make coffee for or instruct anyone who wants espresso from it. There are quirks, and steam shoots out unexpectedly. Make sure to empty the drip tray regularly, because the machine rinses itself a lot, and until you get used to it, it's hard to remember when to expect it. The body of this machine is just under 18" deep, about 14" tall and just under 9.5" wide. I live in a teeny apartment and most of the cupboards are too low to accommodate this machine. I had to put it in an inconvenient spot because it's so tall, and it needs a lot of clearance above for steam and bean-pouring. Altogether this espresso machine is faaaan-tastic. It takes awhile to get the nuances down, and the menu is not entirely intuitive (maybe because it's translated from Italian?) but once you figure it out, you'll be so happy, and have so much more money, and be so early for work :)

Let me start off by saying this is probably the easiest coffee machine to clean! Everything that gets dirty can basically be pulled off the machine and rinsed out. No more finding awkward angles to scrub that one part that you can barely reach. Making coffee is simple now. Knowing when the machine will dispense water is a bit of a learning curve at first. It WILL clean itself and dispense water EVERY time you turn the machine on or off. You'll always need to keep a bowl or tray on hand. The upside to this is the machine is essentially cleaning itself every time you turn it on or off. The coffee grounds are captured into a convenient dump tray which you can leave for up to 72 hours (or it will tell you if you made too many drinks to empty it). It is simple to take out and dump into the trash and give it a quick rinse. It can accept a water filter if your water isn't quite up to par. The tank holds a decent volume where I'm not constantly needing to fill it up but if you have multiple coffee drinkers in your house, it may need filling every day or two. Since this machine grinds for you, you don't have to dish out extra cash on a quality grinder. You can also get the freshest bean juice since everything is ground fresh before you drink it! The milk container is easily washed and quick connects to the machine. You can just pull it off and put it in the fridge. It also has a self cleaning feature which you just turn a knob and it cleans! The coffee this machine makes probably won't be the best cup you've ever had but it will always be consistent and you can fine tune it exactly how you like for that same fresh cup every day.

The De'Longhi ECAN 23460s is faulty out of the box. On two occasions, we purchased this machine (new) from two different 3rd party vendors of Amazon. Although both companies were extremely helpful, this product failed from the start. Once received, we opened the outer box, removed the product/company box which held the item in Styrofoam and the plastic, as with any new electronic device. After reading the instructions, we began the "start up" functions (adding water, inserting the water spout, etc.) as the instructions directs. As shown in the pictures, when pressing the "Hot Water Confirm" button, the screen says "Please Wait" while making a noise as if it's working. Then it displayed "Water Circuit Empty Fill Water Circuit". We then contacted De'Longhi (actual) for guidance/troubleshooting. After about 15 minutes of direction from an associate, they suggest we send it into De'Longhi for repairs.....THIS IS A NEW MACHINE! To make a long story short, #rinse&repeat for the second new machine we ordered. With all that said, I DO NOT recommend anyone ordering this item. You are risking nearly $1,000 investment for a brand new product that does not work out of the box. I may have been extremely unlucky to have received two brand new machines from two completely different vendors of Amazon, but I doubt it. Consider this a warning, those looking for a Top of the Line fully automatic espresso/cappuccino maker for roughly $1k.

I am a coffee lover and the Italians know their stuff when it comes to the subject. When looking at the cost of the machine, it seems steep. Compare it to six months of a coffee vendor and it comes into perspective quickly. It makes extremely good coffee.

I love this coffee maker - but - our first one displayed a random error message after only 3 or 4 cups of coffee and their tech support said it had to be replaced. The second coffee maker that we received would not heat water over 140 degrees, even following all of the advice again of technical support - strike two. We almost just returned this and gave up on DeLonghi, but we let them replace it one last time and the third one has now been working perfectly for a few months now. From a coffee drinker's perspective, my wife and I love this unit. It's easy to use, easy to clean, and makes great espressos and cappuccinos (I like a double short with a cappaccino). I like the way the frother unit works, allowing you to easily select how much froth you get along with the milk.