Philips 3200 Series Fully Automatic Espresso Machine, Classic Milk Frother, 4 Coffee Varieties, Intuitive Touch Display, 100% Ceramic Grinder, AquaClean Filter, Aroma Seal, Black (EP3221/44)

I fell in love with this machine after using it for a week while visiting a friend. I'm not a coffee snob, but I do like my coffee. I don't care about crema, but I do care about convenience and freshness. This machine lets me make that one convenient cup of coffee I can finish before it gets too cold. And then I can make another one when I'm ready for it. Being freshly ground, and with a choice of settings I can get exactly what I'm in the mood for. While not quite as convenient as various pod machines, it does make a much tastier cup. I wasn't quite ready to spend full price (around $600 at the time) but I did find a used model for about half price. Since I had just performed major maintenance on my friend's model (the first in a year!) I was sure I could address any issues that might come up with a used model. What I ended up getting had clearly been returned with little or no use. It had been thoroughly cleaned and all the labels were intact. I've been using it for a month now and am still pleased with it. Some observations: About the obnoxious orange label so many reviewers complain about: pull off the paper layer and then take a paper towel soaked in 90% (or higher) isopropyl alcohol and lay it on the white stickum for a few minutes. It will then come off easily by merely rubbing your finger across it. Keep it close to the sink. The water tank will need filling at least daily. The flush cycle that happens when you turn it on and off uses a lot of water and fills the water tray quickly, so having easy access to the sink is important. Experiment. Not being a coffee connoisseur, I didn't know the difference between the various setting, other than Espresso. So I tried them all multiple times. You have some choice of strength, temperature and volume. Your selection of coffee beans is also important, and you may need to experiment with those as well. My first few batches were watery, even for my partner who usually has to add water to most coffees. I set the grinder to the finest setting. The milk/cream steamer does work. I did not find that it diluted the milk as some reviewers have observed. Since I don't really care about foam, when I choose to use creamer, I usually preheat it in the microwave instead while the machine is booting up. If you do use the steamer, don't forget to pull off the metal part and rinse it thoroughly. There is a hot water dispenser for diluting your coffee, or making tea. If that's all I need, I can do it faster on my induction stove top. The machine does tell you when you run out of water, and when you need to empty the grounds. It does not tell you when you run out of beans. As I was testing, I ended up with some watery coffee, despite the settings. Thorough checking of the machine revealed an empty bean reservoir. If I did have to come up with a complaint, it's that I can't easily switch beans. After removing loose beans in the reservoir, I have to waste 2 cups before I'm sure the new beans are going through. This is a nuisance as I'm trying out different beans, and switch between caf and decaf. Overall, I'm pleased with it. Would I spend the full $600? Probably. When 2 coffee bar coffees more than pay for a pound of beans, this will quickly pay for itself. I don't have to worry about the coffee getting cold before I get to my home office, and the only waste is coffee grounds which become compost.

I bought the Philips 3221/44, without the LatteGo feature because I don’t like milk in my coffee. Also I’m a bit noise sensitive and the LatteGo has been compared in some reviews to the sound of an airplane taking off. I previously owned a pricey built-in Miele coffee machine that came with our house. The Miele worked fine for about ten years before becoming increasingly cantankerous with age (like many of us). It was a marvel of 2000s technology that would have felt right at home on the International Space Station, except it was probably too heavy to ever reach orbit. It cost almost as much to fix as I paid for the new Philips. The 3221 appears functionally identical to the Miele except in a smaller, lighter, and much cheaper box. I shall call it ‘Mini-Miele.’ Mini-Miele has a similar brewing unit, which is called a “brew group” even though there’s only one of them. Mini-Miele also makes similar noises. According to my iPhone it puts out around 60 dB while brewing and 70 dB while grinding. The former is a steady 60-Hz electric hum, whereas the latter sounds more like a racoon trapped in a recycling bin. Overall noise levels are somewhere between normal conversation and a vacuum cleaner. Not bad really. The Miele also made a series of loud “thunks” that Mini-Miele thankfully does not reproduce. The Miele was made primarily of steel and lots of it; Mini-Miele is all plastic with pseudo-chrome trim. Sounds cheap I know but this seems to be the norm for most such machines, including some in the $2000-range. Materials, fit, and finish are all on par with a new Toyota, which is to say quite good. The control buttons worked easily once I overcame the desire to press them. It just takes a light touch. The buttons are logical and marked both with text and little pictures, helpful in case I forget how to read English. The water container is smaller than in the Miele but adequate, and features a cute little water softener/filter that lives inside. It has to be replaced at some interval but you don’t have to call the Culligan Man. On startup, Mini-Miele entertains with a robotic dance of flashing lights, groaning sounds, and waterworks. Once it settles down from that (about one minute) it’s really easy to operate. It does doubles if you want, but with a caveat: you have to wait for the grinding and brewing routine to complete itself twice. A double Americano takes about two and a half minutes. The first cups from Mini-Miele tasted, well…bad actually. Like coffee laced with aspirin. The machine apparently makes its own adjustments during this time, but not enough to help. What did help was using different beans and adjusting the grind a few clicks finer. The coffee tastes much better now, quite similar to what the 5x more expensive Miele could produce during its prime. Not on par with a good café in Florence, but good enough to avoid driving to the local Starbucks. Cleanup of Mini-Miele supposedly requires only a weekly rinse of the brew unit. Apparently nobody told the coffee grounds however, which may be found freely sprinkled about the machine’s interior. Still, it’s easier to clean than the Miele due to fewer dark corners and crevasses. A quick wipe of the interior surfaces gets the job done. The Miele did have a larger used coffee bin, which meant less frequent emptying but also more mold. True espresso afficionados inspect the used ‘pucks’ the way a big-game hunter might inspect scat, in their search for the perfect ‘pull.’ Mini-Miele’s droppings appear drier and more puck-shaped than the Miele, which I think is a good thing. I’m still in the honeymoon phase with Mini-Miele but am optimistic about its future. It produces push-button coffee at a fraction of the cost of the showier but often troublesome Miele, with no noticeable difference in taste. I don’t yet know about its long term durability, but so far Mini-Miele looks like a winner.

I am surprised there are so many 5 star reviews, thats why i bought this machine. That and it does espresso AND coffee which I was excited about. It's my mom and I in the house so I thought I would splurge as we have loved coffee our whole lives. Thought it would be a good investment. This made the worst coffee I've ever had. It was either burnt tasting, or super watery. The first 2 seconds of the pour looks promising and like dark coffee then it's 20+ seconds of just pure water. The manual says the brew at least 5 cups of coffee initially to let the machine calibrate, but apparently it can take up to 100 cups for it to calibrate fully... So one cup might be okay, then the next will be terrible again. Also something that I didnt know until i tried it. I thought the machine stays on all the time so you can just walk up and all heating elements are ready to go, nope! After a little bit the machine shuts itself off (it's not even that long) and when you push the power button it has to warm up again and also beware! As it pours water out of its spout with no warning. The manual/directions for setup are very vague, I had to youtube how to do the setup finally. The machine is a lot larger than it looks like in the photos. You also need above machine space so it didnt work very well for our countertop that had cabinets above it. We had to keep pulling the machine forward to put beans in the hopper as we wasted cup after cup of coffee waiting for it to calibrate which it never did. The water reservoir is pretty small so it ran out of water pretty quickly. I ended up returning the machine fairly quickly. This might be a good machine for espresso lovers? (maybe) but definitely dont buy this if you are interested in the coffee function. We ended up going back to our same old $30 coffee pot.

You don’t need a brand you can’t pronounce to get amazing coffee! The Philips 3200 makes rich, smooth espresso and coffee at the touch of a button. It’s easy to use, easy to clean, and delivers café-quality drinks every time. Simple, reliable, and worth every penny. And the frother is awesome for a great latte.

I have used this for 4 weeks now and am on the last day of my return window. I’ve been on the fence, but have decided to keep it despite several issues. This is my first fully automatic machine. I don’t have anything to compare it to in real life, but have watched 10’s of hours of reviews for other machines before deciding on this one as my first. I have a good idea of the features and benefits of using more expensive machines - and decided that the fancy features didn’t warrant the price, for me. I was right, mostly. This machine, as any good review site on the internet will tell you, makes exactly as good coffee as machines 5x the price. It all comes down to a few things - looks, price, and features. To be clear, read reviews, ALL MACHINES MAKE THE SAME COFFEE. In this price range - this machine and the top 20 or so fully automatics, they all rate EXACTLY the same in coffee quality according the all the top review sites. LOOKS It’s debatable, but I think this machine looks better than most. The more expensive chrome models sure do look nice… they also take 30 minutes a day to clean and polish. If you have a maid, get one of those for sure. I’ll take the plastic black, easy to wipe down model any day. I spend 10 seconds a day cleaning this machine. It doesn’t look expensive and draw jealousy from sales people who come to my door but it looks nice in my kitchen with my grey appliances and doesn’t require an employee to keep clean. PRICE No brainer. This is half the price of the second next best machine. Philips bought Saeco and the price has dropped considerably, half actually. It’s now a consumer product where before it was only marketed to Richie Rich and the 1%. Let them eat coffee! Read reviews, the next comparable machine is about twice the price - and is equally reviewed. FEATURES Heres where this awesome machine runs a bit afoul of a few things. THE HOPPER It’s super shallow and hard to fill. Though it’s plenty to provide coffee for a few days, or weeks depending on how often you make a cup, I just don’t like the design. It’s really, really shallow. When the hopper is about half empty you have to start worrying about whether the beans are moving toward the grinder. You’ll find yourself opening it and pushing beans down on a regular basis. This is by no means a deal breaker, but I was disappointed that I had to check the hopper more than expected. I can fit a weeks worth of beans in there, but I can’t trust it. THE FROTHER It’s not great. Though it will indeed froth milk and make a nice cream for your latte or whatever - you will never, ever get a circular vortex out of this tip. You’ll never achieve creamy perfection. It’s fine, it really is. It’s just not nearly as good as higher end machines. It’s a step up from air froth’s but nowhere near as good as it could be. If you want to make art on the top of your cup, well, that’s stupid - but also you can’t do it with this. This is probably the biggest reason I considered sending the machine back. I looked forward to a REAL frother, and this isn’t it. It’s 90% of what it needs to be. THE WATER The actual water tank is fantastic. I love how it slides out and connects. It’s easy to use and fill. The filter is great, though a touch expensive (and optional). BUT, by god, the sensor in it is INFURIATING. Imagine yourself making a cup of coffee… you have 99.9% of your cup filled with delicious coffee… and then the water tank says NO!. You have to pull out that tank, put 0.00000001 ml of water in it to finish your cup. This is CONSTANT and stupid issue. It should know if it can finish a cup before it starts - but it doesn’t, it only tells you after it’s run out of water. And, by the way, it runs out of water when the tank is 70% depleted. Seriously. That’s when it decides you can’t possibly fill that 0.00000001 ml water even though there are several cups left in the tank. This whole thing is stupid and anyone involved in designing it should feel really, really bad about it. In some countries, ya know, they’d fall on their swords over this kind of stupid thing. You will run into this issue when making a cup of coffee, turning it off, turning it on and everything else. You have to constantly make sure the tank is full at all times. FULL. CLEANING This thing is really easy to clean. The bottom tray pulls out - there is a button that pops up when it’s getting full of water and a digital indicator when it needs to be emptied, but just get in the habit of pulling it out and emptying it every day and you’ll be fine. It pulls out and is super easy to empty into your sink/trash. I’ve pulled the ‘engine’ out in the last month twice to clean, and it was super easy. This is one major reason to buy this machine over more complicated ones… just rinse with water and done. PROBLEMS Because of Covid, I have no idea if I got a broken machine or this is an issue with the entire line…. The bean bypass does not work, at all. Not even a little. We tried an entire pound of coffee and could only get the bypass to work about 5% of the time. Most times, the machine cleared out the bypass grounds and gave us only hot water. Since it worked a few times, and then mostly didn’t, I know it’s an issue with the machine. Unfortunately because of Covid, Philips has shut down ALL of their customer service. You cannot contact them for support or warranty issues at all. So, I’m left with a machine that doesn’t work as advertised. Since this feature wasn’t hugely important to me I’m keeping the machine… but in any other time I would have sent it back. COFFEE Bottom line, this thing makes exceptional coffee. All those problems I listed… pffftttt… don’t matter. I’m dealing with them. I’ve simply never had a better cup of coffee. I go to sleep thinking about the delicious cup I’m going to have in the morning and wake up excited to have it. If you haven’t dipped into the world of fully automatic machines before, you’re in for a serious treat. Sure I wish all the little things would be fixed but it just doesn’t matter. The coffee is that good. Use good beans. Clean the machine once a week. Enjoy.

I bought the Philips Saeco 3200 during the Black Friday sales of 2023. I have had a lot of time and coffee with the espresso maker. Overall, this is a good espresso maker. There are a few things that could be improved. I always make a short shot as I like very strong espresso. The shot size function works well but the espress is not as strong as my previous manual espresso maker. Teh amount of coffee per shot is lower. The temperature of the produced espresso is also slightly lower than I like. There are 3 levels of temperature. The highest temperature setting produces expresso at 160F which is the correct range but if your cup is not warm the "drinking" temperature drops to 140F or lower depending on the mass of your cup.. I switched from my traditional espresso cup to the double-wall insulated cups. That mostly solved the issue. I wish the middle temperature setting was 160F and the highest setting was 175F. When using beans, I often have to lift the sealed lid to move beans to the grinder. The bevel on bean hopper is not sufficient to keep the grinder full. As I mentioned before, I like very strong espresso. My final learning is when using ground coffee do not add "extra" grounds. The machine recognizes too much coffee and the shot is lost. All in all, this is a good espresso machine. Reproducibility is great. I did decide to keep it in spite of these caveats. Update from November 2023. I raised the rating from 3 stars to 5 stars. My unit has performed well enough that I gifted my son-in-law the same unit (Milk frother added). His espresso has addressed the vast majority of the issues that I highlighted. The slope of the beam hopper has been increased. The grinder always gets a good bean supply. The espresso is at a higher temperature. He (and I) were/are very pleased with the espresso maker. The simplicity of the espresso-making process and the espresso quality are hard to beat. I can now highly recommend the product.

Years ago we imagined a day where we could get a super automatic. Unfortunately, all of them have been expensive. Until this very special machine. We chose this machine because the company has a good reputation, we like the design, it had good reviews on YouTube and Amazon, and very specifically this one was our Goldilocks machine. That is, it can make coffee, americano, has a steam wand but not a full-blown frother, and can brew double shots which is awesome for entertaining. The coffee and americano settings are the ones we use all the time. I like a decaf coffee and a regular americano in the mornings. It makes just the right amount and pairs very nicely with an Ember mug to keep the beverage at the perfect temperature. If I'm having a rough day waking up, I love that I can brew a quick shot to help energize me. I mean this thing is my Lord and Savior. It keeps me going. Keep in mind if you don't like the volume of liquid it pumps out, you can set the amount of fluid dispensed from 1-3; with #3 allowing you to fully customize the volume. 1 & 2 are preset and unchangeable. We've made a few mochas with it. I'm not sure if it's our froth mug or the machine, or the quantity of milk we're using, but I need to go two rounds on the steam button to get the milk to optimal temperature. This could very likely be me and I haven't heard any complaints about this on popular review sites. So let's say it's me. I BROKE MY MACHINE I made the mistake of running some oily beans thru it. DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER (EVER) run oily beans thru it. Your life will become a living hell. Ok not that bad but your machine will be down for the count. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I am a software engineer and tinkerer. I like to solve problems. The manufacturer would want you to not read this and not follow in my path, but I share this because it's a nicely made machine with READILY available replacement parts online. There was a small 7 dollar part that had a lot of stress exerted on it from coffee jamming up. Once I finally found the part and understood how things worked, I replaced the part and I am once again a whole man. The man my wife married. One complaint: I wish the water tank was larger. I highly recommend this machine to anyone who wants great coffee at a value. Treat yourself and buy this machine immediately. Don't delay, act now!

This is a good choice compared to other market machines and is very nice looking on my counter (see first pic). Out of the box to first brew was about 10 minutes. Intuitive straight forward controls. The frothier for lattes and even regular coffee is nice. Emptying grind bin and drip tray is a bit of a pain, but simple and no mess. Cleaning machine weekly is not difficult but is more work than I expected (see second pic). You simply remove the side unit, rinse it off, let it drip dry on the counter and then reinstall. Only thing is you have to make sure the orange dial lines up so it seats properly when sliding it back into place. It jams if you don't do that and the line up is not easy to see on the dial. Since owning the machine (purchased in Nov 2022), the only problem is the frother stopped working properly. It only puts out about half the pressure/steam now and i makes a loud clicking sound. So, it does nothing more than warm up the cream. I am working with Philips via their website to try and get it resolved. They had me run hot water cycle through it a few times and to clean the filter because of air or something. It worked for a day or so and then right back to the same problem. This machine is also a little loud when operating, but not too bad. Kind of makes you feel you are at a Coffee Barista (LOL).