The DeLonghi Magnifica Plus is the top model in the “entry level” range, looking to bridge the gap between DeLonghi’s basic machines and the premium models. In our hands-on DeLonghi Magnifica Plus review, we look at whether this is the best espresso machine in the Magnifica range. And whether it’s the best option at this price.
For the TL;DR version: The DeLonghi Magnifica Plus is a truly excellent option for those who love milk based espresso drinks and value convenience. Both making coffees and cleaning up are about as simple as they can be with this type of machine. The small issues of a loud grinder and over sensitive touch screen are far from deal breakers, making it another excellent value machine from DeLonghi.
That’s just the highlights though, so buckle up for our full breakdown of what it’s like to use the Magnifica Plus. Plus some tips on how to get the best out of it:
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At a Glance: DeLonghi Magnifica Plus Review
DeLonghi consistently makes great value machines that offer convenience and quality. The Magnifica Plus is another triumph in this regard.
It’s fairly compact, looks great, has an awesome touchscreen, and lots of helpful features.
The only downsides, as far as I’m concerned, are that the grinder is a little loud and the touchscreen is a little overly sensitive. Maybe the espresso isn’t as good as some other machines around this price, but I’m nitpicking here and it’s not by much.
Where the Magnifica Plus really shines is with milk based drinks. If those are your jam, then you’ll really enjoy this machine.
Pros
- Good quality espresso
- Superb milk foam
- Beautiful touchscreen
- Fairly compact
Cons
- Loud grinder
- Touchscreen is a little sensitive
Key Features Review
1. 16 One Touch Coffee Recipes
As with all super automatic machines, their marketing material has a higher number (18) but this includes hot milk and hot water which don’t really count. Within the 16 options though, you’ll almost certainly find your favorite coffee available at a touch:
- Espresso
- Doppio+
- Coffee Crema
- Iced Coffee
- 2x Espresso
- Americano
- Long
- Iced Americano
- Latte Macchiato
- Caffe Latte
- Cappuccino
- Flat White
- Espresso Macchiato
- Cappuccino Mix
- Cortado
- Cappuccino+
All drinks are customizable for strength, length, and temperature too, so you can get your perfect serve with minimal effort.
2. LatteCrema System
DeLongi’s LatteCrema system is really superb at creating beautifully foamed milk for all milk-based drinks. There are 3 settings for the amount of foam you need – low for flat whites, medium for lattes, and high for cappuccinos.
The system looks good, easily detaches to be stored in the fridge, and is dishwasher safe for cleaning.
3. Color Touchscreen Display
The touchscreen display not only looks fantastic but makes it easy to select and customize your coffee. My only quibble is that it’s maybe a little overly sensitive.
My favorite thing about the touchscreen is that it gives helpful explanations and guides for the cleaning procedures and how to adjust the grinder for the best results. This is a really helpful feature that’s not common in these types of espresso machines.
4. Conical Burr Grinder with 13 settings
While a little louder than you’d ideally want, the grinder on the Magnifica Plus does an excellent job at the finer end for espresso based drinks. While the coarser settings will get perfect flavor balance out of the longer coffees.
5. 4 User Profiles
Everyone in the house can have their own custom latte recipes… well as long as there’s only 4 of you. Using the 4 dedicated profiles, you can customize and save drinks, avoiding the need to mess around with settings every time you want a coffee.
How Easy to Use is the DeLonghi Magnifica Plus?
The color touchscreen makes navigating all your coffee making options super easy, even if it’s a little sensitive.
The screen displays the coffee options and you simply swipe through them and select your favorite. The coffees even have a little note of the strength and size underneath them. You can even customize your strength and size in the “My” setting and save them to your profile.
For the best espresso results, we used the Magnifica Plus on the finest grind setting with the maximum dose, max temperature, and a 30ml output. This was using medium roast Ethiopian beans; for darker beans we’d use a slightly coarser grind size.
Speaking of grind size, in the settings the Magnifica Plus will talk you through how to adjust the grinder to improve your espresso. It will ask you what your shot looks like and how it tastes and then tell you to grind finer or coarser. I’m honestly obsessed with this – it’s an excellent feature for a machine aimed at making coffee as simple as possible.
Coffee Options
There are a few coffee options that you may not have heard of on the menu:
Doppio+: A double espresso – it produces a slightly less intense shot than the 2x Espresso setting though.
Long: This uses a true double shot (ie 2 cycles) in two bursts of extraction to produce a stronger long black coffee.
Cappuccino Mix: Cappuccino the correct way round – coffee first, milk second. Interestingly, it also has more coffee compared to the regular cappuccino.
Grounds or Whole Beans?
Always, always, always use whole beans with the Magnifica Plus. Sure, there’s a bypass chute for preground coffee in case you need it but why spend all this money on a great machine to then use lower quality ground coffee.
The best thing about bean to cup machines is that they start with whole coffee beans. This means fresher, more flavorful cups of coffee than pre-ground or pod machines can ever come close to.
The grinder on the Maginfica Plus is a little louder than I’d like but it does give you 4 or 5 grind settings that work nicely with espresso to get the best out of your beans. You can use another 5 or 6 of the more coarse settings for the longer extraction coffees. But we found the coarsest 2 settings totally useless.
You can fit a convenient 8.8oz in the bean hopper which is roughly the size of most bags of coffee beans. Though we’d recommend getting an airtight container for the excess beans if your favorite coffee comes in bigger bags.
If you want to make the occasional decaf or flavored coffee, you can use the bypass chute to avoid emptying out the hopper. But we found that it doesn’t work all that well and you have to be super careful not to add too much coffee or it jams the machine.
Design & Build Quality Review of the DeLonghi Magnifica Plus
The Looks
Sleek, rounded edges with a bright display. This fits nicely into most kitchens as part of the “minimalist” style most people are going for these days. If you have a more retro “farmhouse” aesthetic then it might stick out a bit though.
The display is very pretty with vibrant colors, easy to use sliders, and excellent explainers of the settings. It’s maybe a little too sensitive, it can be easy to hit the wrong icon by accident, but you get use to it fairly quickly.
For this type of espresso maker, it’s actually quite slim. At 9.5 inches wide, it leaves you plenty of space on your counter for all your other crucial appliances. It’s 14 inches high, so there shouldn’t be any issues fitting it under your cabinets; and the water carafe and drip tray are both front loading for easy access. The 17.5 inch depth is about standard for DeLonghi espresso machines.
The Build
Many people will complain about the amount of plastic used in making the Magnifica Plus. Don’t get me wrong, I’d also prefer stainless steel to be more prevalent but this is what the super-automatic espresso machine market is like these days. Very few manufacturers use large amounts of stainless steel as it’s so expensive and something sat on your countertop doesn’t really need need to stand up to too much.
Thankfully, there’s nothing that feels likely to break with the Magnifica Plus, not to us anyway. All the detachable pieces fit together nicely. The milk carafe is well made and the water tank is sturdy. The drip tray is light and a little bendy, but you’d still have to try hard to break it.
If you do get unlucky and something breaks, there’s a 1-year warranty.
How Good is the Coffee from the Magnifica Plus?
Generally, the coffee leans a little on the sour side but it’s still very impressive for the price.
The newer Magnifica series machines (the Magnifica Evo and current Magnifica Start) are a big step forward from the previous models. The 15g dose allows you to get real depth and richness in your espresso.
On the factory settings, we found the shots were a little weak and over-extracted (bitter) on the factory settings. But by tightening up the settings to get a 1:2 ratio (15g in 30g out), it performed very nicely.
Our preferred settings are: max strength, finest grind setting, and a 30g espresso output.
It’s still not at the level of a Barista or some of the more expensive automatic machines. But then a DeLonghi will never compare to a Jura on taste. So, for the price, the quality is really very good.
The milky drinks are where the Magnifica Plus really shines.
The dial on the LatteCrema lets you get that perfect foam density for the drink you’re making – less for flat whites with the most for cappuccinos. The milk foam is consitently beautifully silky and you can even make latte art with it if you want.
Anyone who loves a milk based espresso drink will have a brilliant time with the Magnifica Plus.
Ease of Cleaning
“Dishwasher safe milk carafe” is the finest sentence in the coffee English language.
Milk carafes can get nasty quickly if you don’t keep them clean. This is partly why we like Jura machines for using a hose and any random jug. But being able to put the LatteCrema carafe through the dishwasher also takes the W in our book.
If you’re using the Magnifica Plus daily, we’d recommend putting the carafe through the dishwasher twice a week.
The Magnifica Plus runs steam through the milk dispenser after each use to help keep the other parts clean but you’ll also want to deep clean them frequently to be safe.
The drip tray is also dishwasher safe, but sadly you need to clean the water tank and used puck container by hand.
You’ll need to occasionally descale your Magnifica Plus – once every couple of months if you use water filters or filtered water. This typically takes 20-30 minutes and the screen will talk you through all the steps. As is standard, DeLonghi wants you to use branded descaling solution to clean with.
Competition
As soon as you’re looking at spending over $1000 on a machine, you get a few *very good* options:
KitchenAid KF6
The KitchenAid KF6 is a little cheaper than the Magnifica Plus and delivers a lot of the same features.
15 drink options, excellent changeable hoppers, great espresso, and it’s very nice looking. It’s a strong entry from KitchenAid into the automatic espresso machine world and one that impressed us a lot.
The milk from the KF6 doesn’t quite live up to the quality of the Magnifica Plus LatteCrema system. So if you’re a daily flat white or cappuccino drinker, you’ll want to spend the extra $200 for that really good foam.
But for black coffee drinkers who might want the occasional milky option, you should consider saving a little money and going with the KF6. It’s prettier, quieter, and makes espresso that’s just as good.
Read next: Our in-depth KitchenAid KF6 Review
Breville Barista Touch
It’s tough to say if this is truly competition for the Magnifica Plus as it’s aimed at a totally different type of coffee drinker.
The Breville Barista Touch allows you to tweak your coffee and foam to a much larger degree than the Magnifica Plus and can produce better quality of both at a touch.
The downside is that it requires a lot more work and effort from you to achieve this. As well as having to tamp your grounds (with the excellent trimmer and tamper), you need to move the portafilter and understand a little more about adjusting grind and milk settings to get your perfect coffee.
If that sounds like great fun then this is the machine for you. If you’re looking to press a button and get the coffee you want then you’ll be frustrated by the daily effort of the Barista Touch.
Read next: Our in-depth Breville Barista Touch Review
Final Thoughts
Overall, this is a great espresso machine for milk based coffee lovers who value convenience.
It’s simple to use, makes fantastic milk foam, and is easy to clean. This is the combo of quality and convenience most people want from a super-automatic espresso machine.
The downsides are that the grinder is a little loud and the touchscreen is a little too sensitive but these are small foibles for an overall excellent espresso machine.
If you want to save a little money and aren’t big into milk-based drinks then the KitchenAid KF6 offers a solid alternative option.
For milk-based coffee lovers who value ease of use and cleaning, we’re happy giving a double thumbs up in this DeLonghi Magnifica Plus review. It really is tough to beat at this price.
Don’t forget to buy your DeLonghi Magnifica Plus today
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