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Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Two-minute review
The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is a fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine that’s a great option for smaller households or anyone making their first venture into the world of one-touch coffee machines. It’s very similar to the LatteGo 5500 Series that my UK-based colleague, Cat Ellis, has beforehand reviewed, and simply misses out on a couple of preset drink recipes.
In any other case, the 2 machines undertake the very same dimensions, which means their bean hopper and water tanks are the identical dimension at 275g and 1.8L respectively, and, because the identify implies, the 4400 Collection on overview right here additionally makes use of Philips’ LatteGo milk-foaming system. This sees a milk carafe clip onto a steam nozzle on the entrance of the machine, with the thought being that you simply fill it with simply sufficient milk to your chosen drink(s) as soon as it’s connected.
Given the two machines make coffee in the exact same way, you’d expect the review of the 4400 Series to read largely the same, then, wouldn’t you? Well, while I do agree with much of Cat’s review of the 5500 Series, and that the Philips espresso machine does produce good-tasting coffee, I picked up on a few niggles during my time using the 4400. These mainly relate to the LatteGo system and the steps required to brew a coffee. I’ll explain more about both in the performance section of this review.
Ultimately, the Philips 4400 LatteGo coffee machine is incredibly simple to use and offers everything you need to make a great coffee, whether it be a simple espresso or ristretto shot, a larger latte, cappuccino or even a few iced drinks.
As with the 5500 Series, the 4400 Series doesn’t offer cold coffee extraction. If you want to make an iced drink, you’ll need to add ice cubes to a glass or mug for the machine to then pour on a hot shot of espresso. This machine can’t make iced lattes, so if you do want a milk-based iced drink, you’ll need to make do with pouring cold milk directly into your glass or mug.
If you like cold coffee, then you may not like the flavor profile delivered by the 4400 Series, and, as Cat found in her review, once the ice melts it can make the coffee taste weaker. Personally, I enjoyed making iced drinks using the Philips 4400 Series, but it’s ultimately a matter of personal preference.
Furthermore, having previously reviewed the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next computerized espresso machine, I discovered myself preferring the style of the espresso produced by the Philips machine as an alternative, and I appreciated the smaller footprint it took up on my kitchen counter.
Nonetheless, as a plant milk drinker, I did choose the extent of milk foam produced by the De’Longhi’s LatteCrema system in comparison with the LatteGo milk-foaming system utilized by the Philips machine.
Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Price and availability
- List price $799.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,199
- Available globally
- Often discounted
The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is available globally with a list price of $799.99 / £599.99 / AU$1,199. At the time of writing, however, I was able to find it discounted to £499.99 in the UK and below AU$1,000 in Australia.
The 4400 Series sits one step down from the flagship 5500 Series, offering 12 hot and cold drink recipes compared to the 20 options found on its higher-spec sibling.
Its list price places it in a similar category to the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next totally computerized espresso machine that I’ve beforehand reviewed.
The 2 machines are equally specced, though the De’Longhi unit is way bigger. The Philips 4400 Collection would subsequently be my suggestion in case your kitchen is on the smaller aspect.
Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Specs
|
Name |
Philips LatteGo 4400 Series |
|
Type |
Fully automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine |
|
Dimensions (W x H x D) |
9.7 x 14.6 x 17in / 24.6 x 37.1 x 43.3cm |
|
Weight |
17.6lbs / 8kg |
|
Water reservoir capacity |
1.9qt / 1.8 liters |
|
Milk frother |
Yes (automatic) |
|
Bars of pressure |
15 |
|
User profiles |
2 (plus guest) |
Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Design
- Compact, ideal for smaller kitchens
- Intuitive, button-based navigation
- Easy to clean and maintain but cleaning agents sold separately
The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is a relatively compact bean-to-cup espresso machine, coming in at 9.7 inches / 24.6cm wide and 17 inches / 43.3cm long.
As a result, it makes placing it on a kitchen countertop quite easy, as it can be placed in a corner, for example and up against the wall, since the water tank slides out from the front. The brewing group head is accessed via the side behind the water tank, making maintenance just as simple.
The machine is controlled via a series of touch buttons on the front, which flank a 2.3-inch color display. A selection of popular coffee-based drinks have dedicated buttons on the front – including espresso, long black, cappuccino and flat white – while the remaining hot and cold drinks are accessed via a ‘More Drinks’ button.
You’ll also find a ‘Profile’ button on the front, which is used to cycle through two main profiles – Yellow and Blue – and a third guest profile to ensure your saved presets aren’t overridden.
The non-removable bean hopper is accessed at the top. All you need to do is remove the tinted plastic lid – by being tinted, it helps to prevent light from degrading the flavor of the beans – which is also airtight to maintain freshness. If you want to adjust grind settings, that’s done via a control dial set inside the bean hopper.
It’s not particularly large with a capacity up to 275g of beans, but this makes it a good option for single-person or couple households. Plus, the fact it’s airtight means you can leave beans in between uses and not worry about them spoiling, as opposed to pouring in just the right amount of beans for the drink you want to make.
As is the case with the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo Next I’ve previously reviewed, Philips says to only operate the grind adjustment whilst beans are being ground. It took me a little while to figure out how to actually use the dial, and after consulting the user manual, I realized you have to first press down on it before rotating.
There are 12 grind settings to choose from, with the halfway point setting 6 being the default. Philips says this should be ideal for most users, and recommends not adjusting it until you’ve made 100 to 150 drinks. I found during my review period that I did have to adjust to a finer setting – I settled on 4 – to achieve a thicker crema and a more flavorful coffee.
The Philips 4400’s LatteGo milk-frothing system comprises a small carafe that attaches to a steam nozzle on the front of the machine. It’s designed to be filled with just enough milk for whatever drink you want to make, as opposed to being stored in the fridge with leftover milk between uses. You can still store the milk in the fridge if you wish, but just note the lid isn’t airtight.
I liked the idea of this, but in reality I came across a couple of slight niggles.
The carafe has markings on the side for a single cappuccino, a single latte macchiato or two cappuccinos. I filled the carafe with oat milk to the line for the single cappuccino and poured one, and found it didn’t use all the milk.
Plus, when you’re selecting a coffee to make, you can adjust the volume of coffee and milk that goes in. If you adjust the volume of milk, for example, then you’ll need to ensure enough is in the carafe, making the markings somewhat redundant.
I’ll speak about it more in the performance section, but I also wasn’t overly happy with the level of (or lack of) milk foam produced by the system. Full-fat dairy milk did fare a lot better than plant milk during my tests though.
The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series does have some other design features that I found useful, including a deep grounds container bin and a decently sized drip tray. The machine will let you know when the ground container needs emptying, but this won’t be that regular since it’s capable of storing a good amount of waste.
Another positive I noticed was how well-packaged the machine was, and that Philips used predominantly recyclable cardboard.
One thing worth noting is that you aren’t supplied with any cleaning tablets or descaling solution. Having reviewed coffee machines from De’Longhi and Australian brand Sunbeam, both of which do supply some cleaning products with their machines, I had expected the same from Philips.
Cleaning tablets can be bought online from stores such as Amazon, nevertheless it’s an additional value you’ll want to think about. Whereas the AquaClean filter ought to final a while – it’ll stop working as soon as 95 liters (round 625 coffees) of water has flowed by it – it’ll even be a further expense to interchange.
So long as you retain changing the filters on time, you then received’t must descale the machines for 5000 coffees – 8 filters value. At $20 / £12 / AU$29 per filter, that’s about $160 / £96 / AU$232 to delay the necessity to descale, however barely much less if shopping for in bulk.
Compared (relying in your water hardness), with out the filters, you’d usually must descale as much as about 10 occasions for 5000 cups, with the overall value round half of shopping for new filters.
Lastly, one other factor I observed was when eradicating a sticker on the entrance of the machine referencing the actual fact it may possibly make 12 completely different coffee-based drinks, it left some adhesive behind (the white half to the fitting of the espresso spout within the photos).
Philips LatteGo 5500 Series review: Performance
- Great-tasting coffee with some grinder adjustment
- Good level of personalization
- LatteGo milk-foaming system not without fault
The Philips LatteGo 4400 Series is an incredibly easy espresso machine to use. Once you’ve got it set up – this involves testing your water for hardness and installing the supplied AquaClean filter if required – you’ll be brewing a coffee in seconds. The central color display provides information clearly, and buttons are logically laid out to navigate through menus and drinks to adjust settings.
There are 12 drinks to choose from:
- Espresso
- Coffee
- Long black
- Cappuccino
- Latte macchiato
- Caffè crema
- Caffè latte
- Ristretto
- Flat white
- Iced espresso
- Iced long black
- Iced coffee
Once you’ve selected a drink to make, a secondary screen allows you to adjust the strength and volume. In some cases, increasing the volume of coffee will mean the machine will have to grind beans twice, which can increase the speed you go through a bag. I increased the volume of my daily flat white from the default 80ml to 100ml, for example, and I had to wait for the machine to grind a second dose of beans before it was finished.
If you tweak the settings for a drink, whether it be strength or volume, the machine will save them for the next time. Each time you make an adjustment, it overrides the previous settings. If two people in the same household want the same drink but with different settings, I would recommend taking advantage of the two individual profiles to store personal drink preferences. Switching between profiles is simple thanks to a dedicated button on the front panel.
If there are more than two people in your home and each has their own preference, you’ll be better served by stepping up to the 5500 Series model, which has 4 profiles plus a separate guest profile.
The machine doesn’t provide feedback regarding grind size or whether it’s ideal for the beans you’ve used – something you will find on De’Longhi machines that have BeanAdapt technology such as the Rivelia – however you may manually regulate the grind setting to provide a well-extracted espresso. The default setting of 6 must be high quality for many use instances, though I did discover for the beans I used, the crema wasn’t as thick as I would really like, and it dissipated comparatively shortly. As talked about beforehand, I used to be a lot happier with the consequence as soon as I adjusted the grinder to setting 4 for a finer grind.
The place I skilled a bit extra of a difficulty was when utilizing the LatteGo milk-foaming system. Having examine it on the Philips web site and in my colleague Cat’s overview of the extra feature-packed 5500 Collection mannequin, I used to be anticipating nice outcomes from the corporate’s tackle computerized milk frothing. I wasn’t completely happy with the efficiency, though I believe some leniency must be utilized.
Firstly, the milk carafe is somewhat awkward to connect to the steam nozzle. Not frustratingly so, nevertheless it requires a extra regular hand in comparison with the method taken by De’Longhi, whose LatteCrema milk carafe simply inserts right into a cutout on the entrance of its machines.
Secondly, there are markings on the aspect of the carafe to point how a lot is required for a selected drink. In apply, I discovered these to be inaccurate, and I all the time had some leftover milk within the carafe. As a result of the lid isn’t hermetic, I needed to pour this away if I knew I wasn’t going to have one other espresso quickly after the primary.
Lastly, regardless of utilizing a barista-level model of oat milk, which has the next protein content material to help with producing a thicker foam, the milk pushed out into my espresso mug lacked any actual resemblance to correct foam. It was definitely foamier than if I simply poured milk from the carton, however after I in contrast the outcomes to utilizing my Nespresso Aeroccino 3 milk frother, it was a transparent win for Nespresso. I additionally examined the LatteGo system with full-fat dairy milk and it did produce a a lot thicker foam.
The place I need to give some leniency is the truth that I wasn’t tremendous happy with the outcomes of the De’Longhi LatteCrema system after I reviewed the Magnifica Evo Subsequent computerized espresso machine. I’ve but to strive comparable methods from the likes of KitchenAid or Smeg, however I do surprise if the best way they – creating steam and mixing with milk to aerate it – is that efficient on the entire. In my thoughts, if you happen to get pleasure from cafe-quality ranges of milk foam, you then’ll be higher served by an espresso machine with a steam wand.
I additionally experimented with iced drinks utilizing the 4400 Collection, though as Cat found in her overview of the 5500 Collection, the 4400 Collection machine doesn’t truly produce chilly espresso. As a substitute, you’re instructed to place ice cubes right into a mug or glass, which then cools the espresso down. Philips does say water and occasional produced for iced drinks is “heat” quite than sizzling, so it’ll quiet down faster when poured over ice. I didn’t essentially thoughts this method, nevertheless it did make me surprise why there are iced drink recipes within the first place. I might simply as simply place ice in a mug and run a daily espresso shot, quite than choose iced espresso.
The 4400 Collection solely has three iced drink presets: iced espresso, iced espresso and iced lengthy black. I like an iced latte and so poured chilly milk right into a glass with ice cubes and ran an iced espresso shot. For my tastes, the consequence was very good, and my accomplice loved his iced lengthy black. The 5500 Collection does have a preset for iced latte, which pours chilly milk through the LatteGo system.
Lastly, the Philips 4400 LatteGo makes use of what the corporate calls SilentBrew expertise to maintain noise ranges to a minimal. It’s additionally Quiet Mark licensed, which means it’s among the many quietest in its product class. Understanding this, I assumed I’d hear near-silence from the machine throughout use, however in actuality it was louder than I had anticipated. Utilizing the Decibel X app on my iPhone and standing subsequent to the machine, I recorded a measurement of 69dB when the machine was grinding beans and round 60dB when espresso was being poured. That’s louder than the KitchenAid KF8, which can be Quiet Mark licensed. We recorded a measurement of 66dB when grinding and a median quantity of simply 44dB in our KitchenAid KF8 review.
- Efficiency rating: 4.5 / 5
Should I buy the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series?
|
Attribute |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
Affordable and often discounted, although other great options can be picked up for less during sales. |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
Compact size will suit most kitchens, easy to clean and intuitive interface |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Performance |
Great results across all drinks, just don’t set your expectations too high for the LatteGo system |
4 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Philips LatteGo 4400 Series: Also consider
If you’re not sure that the Philips LatteGo 5500 Series is the right coffee maker for you, here are two other options for your consideration.
How I tested the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series
I tested the Philips LatteGo 4400 Series over a period of two weeks with some coffee beans from a local supermarket that I had used before. I tested the water hardness using the strip supplied in the box and fitted the water tank using the instructions provided.
I tested the LatteGo system of the 4400 Series coffee machine using fridge-cold full-fat dairy and a barista oat milk. I tested the machine’s ability to produce a variety of hot and cold drinks.
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