De’Longhi Magnifica Plus: My review

De’Longhi is one of the most active coffee brands in the market, and it proves it again with the Magnifica Plus, the latest release from the Italian brand that also becomes the best and most complete of the Magnifica range.

And this is the Magnifica from De’Longhi with the highest number of recipes, in addition to a great touch screen, and a function in the milk tank that we had only seen in the De’Longhi Dinamica: the possibility of choosing three levels of milk frothing.

It is a highly interesting super-automatic coffee machine and I have little doubt that it will sell very well in the coming years, and here I share my experience with it.

De'Longhi Magnifica Plus

5.0

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Pump	15 bars
Thermoblock	1450W
Grinder	13 grinding settings
Screen	Touch and 3.5 inches
Coffee bean container	250 g
Ground coffee hopper
Water tank	1.9 liters
Programmed recipes	18
Recipe customization	Volume and intensity settings
User profiles	4
Milk tank
Milk frother type	Auto
Maximum cup height	140 mm
Dimensions	24 x 44 x 36 cm

The most modern and advanced Magnifica

The Magnifica range had always been the low range of De’Longhi, but the Treviso brand has changed that policy this year, with the new Magnifica Evo Next and this Magnifica Plus, coffee machines that have features that until now we had only seen in supposedly superior ranges.

The most obvious of these features is the 3.5-inch, touch, full-color touch screen. The control panel consists solely of this screen, the power and profile selection buttons, and buttons to access the catalog of black or milk coffee recipes.

The screen is accompanied by a very attractive and intuitive visual interface, full of information about each new step in coffee preparation, and animations that give it a very modern touch, unusual in super-automatic coffee machines. The ease of use and the amount of information provided by the menu screens make it a super intuitive coffee machine, even for someone who has never used a machine like this.

There are 18 programmed recipes that the Magnifica Plus brings, a considerable number. We have the usual recipes of any super-automatic with a milk tank, such as espresso, lungo, coffee, americano, cappuccino, latte macchiato, caffelatte, flat white, and cortado; but also less common recipes, such as cappuccino mix, doppio+ or espresso macchiato.

There are also two cold coffee recipes, although they are tricky: they are cold coffee and cold americano. The trick is that the machine simply tells you how many ice cubes to put in the glass. During my tests, I tried to find out if the Magnifica Plus performs a slower extraction or at a lower temperature in these two recipes, but no, the coffee is extracted exactly the same as in hot coffee recipes, so don’t expect anything even remotely similar to a cold brew which, by the way, other De’Longhi coffee machines do prepare.

A really intense espresso and coffee

The advantage offered by this touch screen is that it allows you to easily and very visually configure the parameters of each drink. De’Longhi offers in most recipes the possibility to select 4 length levels (volume of coffee in the cup) and 5 intensity levels (grinding dose).

Additionally, the My function provides access to greater recipe customization, where we are first given the choice of intensity level, and then we can program the volume you want by pressing the stop button when it reaches the desired amount.

We won’t be able to fine-tune the intensity as much, since the 5 levels the coffee machine gives us are what they are, with no possibility of modifying them even a bit. Also, they are the same for all drinks. However, they have values that are unusual in a super-automatic: the first intensity setting uses a dose of 20 grams of coffee, the second level uses 23, the third employs 26, the fourth doses with 28 grams, and the fifth uses 30 grams.

These are doses I hadn’t seen until now in any super-automatic, as the usual range in these coffee machines is between 7 to 18 grams. This large increase in the dose used is undoubtedly a fine-tuning by De’Longhi in the world of specialty coffee, where larger doses are used than in the more traditional culture of the classic Italian espresso.

Even so, those 30 grams at the maximum setting seem too much to me, although this gives a lot of play when calibrating the grinder as I explain in the article on how to make better espressos in a super-automatic. The fact that De’Longhi has set such a high minimum dose makes the espresso and all types of coffee come out really intense.

Moreover, the grinder measures up, and at its lowest settings, it grinds quite fine. It has 13 grinding settings, and by default, the grinder is set at level 8, so you’ll probably want to lower it a bit. In my tests, at grinding level 1 and with intensity level 5, I have already pushed the pump beyond its capabilities and it couldn’t extract coffee, a clear sign that that 30-gram dose is excessive.

Using the same grind at the lowest setting, and with intensity level 1 (20 grams), I obtained a fantastic espresso, one of the best I’ve ever tried in a super-automatic coffee machine, a confirmation that De’Longhi has gone in the right direction with this powerful increase in coffee dosing.

A milk tank with many possibilities

Another great attraction of the Magnifica Plus is its milk tank, with De’Longhi’s automatic LatteCrema frothing system. The great thing is that we can select between three qualities of milk foam: delicate, creamy, and dense.

In this way, the De’Longhi Magnifica Plus also adapts to the demands of specialty coffee when it comes to milk coffees, as one of the differences between cappuccino, latte macchiato, or flat white lies precisely in the type of milk foam.

The first setting, delicate, heats the milk without frothing it, making it suitable only for caffelatte (coffee with milk). Meanwhile, the creamy setting creates a small and light layer of foam that is ideal for flat white or cortado recipes. The last setting, dense, froths the milk even more for latte macchiato and cappuccino recipes.

The best quality, without a doubt, is offered by the medium, or creamy, setting, as in the dense setting the texture is too airy, while the medium setting provides a smaller layer but with a texture that integrates better with the coffee, and this is much more important than having a larger or smaller foam layer.

Another great point is being able to modify the coffee and milk ratio through the My menu, selecting exactly the desired volume of milk and coffee, so in practice, we can create fully customized recipes to our liking.

A small drawback of the milk outlet is that it is somewhat separated from the coffee outlet, and if you use a small diameter cup, you will have to reposition it between one preparation and another. Needless to say, this system also makes it impossible to prepare two cups of coffee with milk at the same time.

Otherwise, the milk tank has a cleaning system that performs rinses to clean the nozzle. Don’t worry because it is the coffee machine itself that tells you to move the knob to the Clean position every time you finish serving a coffee, although if you are going to serve a second coffee with milk, you can ignore this warning.

The tank has the advantage of being compact, so it can be put in the fridge, and it is very easy to assemble and disassemble, as it consists of only three pieces – lid/spout, tube, and container – which can also be put in the dishwasher. In this sense, it reminds me of the LatteGo of Philips super-automatics, although one of De’Longhi’s advantages over Philips has always been its better automatic milk frothing, which this Magnifica Plus only confirms.

Maintenance made extremely easy

Continuing with the cleaning theme, one of the many advantages of De’Longhi is that its super-automatics are easier to clean and maintain than those of other brands. This applies in the same way with the Magnifica Plus, whose maintenance is further facilitated thanks to that screen, which gives warnings whenever there is a problem with the machine.

So, no indicators that require consulting the instruction manual to know what it’s about: the Magnifica Plus clearly tells you on its screen what the problem is, although it doesn’t have to be a problem, as it also warns you when to refill the water tank or when to empty the coffee grounds drawer.

Another advantage of De’Longhi: its infuser group can be removed and is one of the easiest to clean on the market: generally, a rinse under the tap is enough to remove any grease and coffee residues it may have.

As I mentioned before, all the pieces of the milk tank are dishwasher safe, as is the drip tray grid, but not the drip tray itself, whose plastic parts and paint finishes can be damaged if you put them in the dishwasher.

Like any good super-automatic, the De’Longhi Magnifica Plus also performs automatic rinses every time it is turned off and on, and it has a descaling program that is carried out based on usage and the hardness of the water you have set. De’Longhi includes a test strip and a water filter, but not descaling liquid, which you can buy on Amazon. You can also buy replacement filters on Amazon, which have a lifespan of between two and three months.

The De’Longhi Magnifica Plus is a truly great bean-to-cup machine

The De’Longhi Magnifica Plus is the best super-automatic from De’Longhi and, without any doubt, one of the best bean to cup machines on the market. The Magnifica Plus makes the best espresso of all the super-automatics I have tried, and the adjustment and customization possibilities are very generous, and this also includes milk recipes, with a very good quality milk texture, especially in the medium setting.

Moreover, the touch screen is very modern and intuitive, and it’s a pleasure to navigate through the menus, while it is very easy to make any adjustment or know if there is any cleaning or maintenance issue, thanks to the continuous warnings displayed on the screen. And its design is beautiful, with good finishes and a general feeling of quality.

An alternative in the De’Longhi catalog, with a more or less similar price, is the Rivelia. If you read my opinion of the Rivelia you will see that, although I find it a good coffee machine, it is a step below the Magnifica Plus.

Recently De’Longhi has also released the Magnifica Evo Next, also with an automatic frother and more economical. But if you read my comparison between the Magnifica Plus and the Evo Next, you will see that the Magnifica Plus comes out, again, as the clear winner. In summary: if your priority is to enjoy a good coffee, the Magnifica Plus is better than all of them, and right now it is my number one recommendation when it comes to super-automatic coffee machines.