Espresso Machines Under £500 Review

Welcome! Today we are looking at five espresso machines under or around £500. This was a follow-up to a previous video which was the best espresso machine under £100. Here we are £500, and anything between 100 and 500 was on the table. First up we have the Lelit Anna that was £350. We have the De'Longhi Dedica, £189. By far the cheapest in this category, but had a lot of requests to look at this and this seemed like the best opportunity to do so. We've got the Rancheria Silvia. It's £529 is what I paid, so technically out of budget, but I've seen it for around £500, so it was worthy of inclusion here. We've got the Sage Bambino Plus, that was £399, and at the end here we've got the Gadget Classic Pro, also £399. Important note here, I'm going to use these as mostly stock. I'm not going to modify them heavily, with one small exception. Where I can, I'll be using a better basket. These two machines both came with pressurised portafilters only. It was such an easy thing to switch out that it seemed worthwhile doing, and in this case with the Gadget and the Radcilio, they're both 58mm portafilters. I'm going to use a better basket for them too for the espresso testing. That does put the Lelit at a slight disadvantage because it will be using its stock basket, which isn't as good as a VST basket, but it's a 57mm portafilter, and I just couldn't find a basket in time that was of a standard that I was looking for. As to how these were chosen, there was really one criteria, which is that they were broadly available in lots of different parts of the world. There were other machines that were proposed, mostly by my Patreon group, but I picked these because they're kind of the most available and easy to get, and therefore giving this the widest utility, I hope, to you, the viewer. So here's how testing is going to work. Firstly, I'm going to talk through each individual model in terms of its build, construction, how it's kind of felt to use, some of the ergonomics there. Then, The important stuff, we're gonna pull some shots of espresso with each of them and I'll talk through the kind of espresso I was able to get and if one of them maybe pulls better espresso than another. We'll do some simple milk steaming tests, both how quick it is and the kind of quality of milk that the steam ones on these produce. At the end we'll wrap up, talk through which one of these will suit you the best based on what you want from an espresso machine owning experience. Let's start with the Lelit Anna. Now I'll be honest, going into this, Lelit was not a brand I knew particularly well. £350 buys you a pretty solid build. Using this didn't result in the machine sliding around very much. It's got a nice weight to it. The things I liked less about the build, if I'm honest, were the water tank. Now it just feels a little bit cheap. The way it works, you've got a couple of hoses that go in here, and then just a large plastic tank. And the cutout in the side. I don't think is a great way to assess how much water is in your tank. There's a common theme today We're going to complain about the the valves for steam ones generally, they just feel a bit cheap and plasticky and I know i'm used to commercial equipment, but but It feels okay the buttons Fine nicely made work well enough. What is a nice inclusion is the pressure gauge here. That is very helpful That's a big plus from me on the build of this thing. However, the drip tray is one part of this that I don't particularly like. It's quite fussy to get in and out. There's no float in the drip tray, so you have no real way of knowing how full it is. So I always feel nervous if I have to tip a drip tray to lift it out. That makes me concerned if I've got this a little bit too full. Now the De'Longhi Dedica is coming in at a disadvantage. It is substantially cheaper than anything else here, and you can tell that from the build. Where there might be a lot of metal in other machines, there's a lot of plastic here, even with that kind of chromed finish at the top. Its footprint is tiny. and that might be a big advantage for a lot of people, but it is light, and you definitely have to grip this thing when you lock it in. And for me, my instinct to grip is to grip it around here, and with my big old hands, I've occasionally pushed buttons while trying to hold the machine in a funny sort of way. And the drip tray is really very small, but it has the convenience at least of having a float to let you know when you're about to make a terrible mess of your kitchen. Water tank, removable, easy to use, clear plastic. Overall, it's what you'd expect for the money. The Rancheria Silvia is built like an absolute tank. It is by far the heaviest of the units here. Once it's on the counter where you want it to be, it's going nowhere. This was the easiest to lock in or remove the portafilter from simply because of its weight. It was not going anywhere on the counter. Buttons, switches, very nice high quality stuff on here. You can feel the sort of build quality of kind of parts here. The steam valve is probably the best of them in terms of feel. though it still does feel like a domestic steam bath in many ways. The water tank is again a bit of a weak point for me. It's not a great experience to remove. You've got your two hoses. Again it's that white plastic material but you have no real insight into how full your tank is unless you open the lid and have a look. Drip tray, the depth and size isn't bad but it's actually quite difficult to see how much liquid is inside it and there's no float or indicator on here. But you know that it's too full. So again, this drip tray has caught me out. The Sage Bambino Plus is a more expensive machine, but it has the build quality of something a little bit cheaper because they spent the money on features rather than build. So lots of plastic all over the machine everywhere. It's very light and that makes it a little bit annoying to get a portafilter into and out of. It will move around on the counter. you're holding the machine. But the other details are generally pretty good. The water tank, easily removed, and it does have instructions for cleaning printed on the back. The portafilter, a little cheaper and plastic-y. The buttons at least feel reliable. They're a manufacturer making a lot of things. with a lot of buttons, so you'd expect those to be of good quality. It's not a steam-valved machine. It's an electronic steam controller, which I think is interesting, but we'll talk about that when it's time to steam some milk. The drip tray is a little bit small, but it does at least have a float in there to let you know that you've got too much liquid and it's time for a little cleaning. It's a tricky one. The build doesn't feel as nice as other machines. It doesn't feel as solid, it doesn't feel as hefty, but their design decision was to spend money on features, not on build, and we'll see later on how that pans out. Before I get into the Gadget, actually I need to. to have a quick disclaimer or disclosure, I guess. My first ever coffee job was working for a company that was Gadget UK selling Gadget classics. This was back in 2003. That company no longer exists. It was a great company and very grateful to my first boss, Raj Beadle for encouraging me into a coffee career. Shout out to Raj. And he now has a separate business that sells these and I bought this from him. So full disclosure about the whole backstory of me and Gadget there. The build is really very good. This is the Classic Pro, which is new to me. to me in some ways. It has a better switches across the top here. It's got a different steam wand to the kind of traditional, I think they're called Panarello ones, but the build is solid. Brush stainless everywhere. Water tank can be accessed from the front and you can pull it out through the front if you want to, which makes changing water very easy, but you can just still pour in the top and fill this way. But one little gripe, gotta say the portafilter on this thing doesn't feel great. It's solid and it's hefty, it's a 58 mil portafilter, but just the finish around here didn't feel... premium in a way that some of the other portafilters do. Drip tray is reasonably deep, but again, no float to indicate that you're about to make a horrible, horrible mess. Overall, for 399, the kind of build you would expect from a premium machine. So here's how espresso testing is gonna work. I'm gonna take a coffee that I know very well. I'm gonna use the fixed recipe across all the machines, which is gonna be about 18 in to 38 grams out in the region of 28 to maybe 32 seconds, depending on the machine and the kind of setup. I want the machines to do the best job they can with the recipe, but by keeping. this kind of fixed and using the same grinder, we'll be able to understand something about the pressures that the machines are putting out. Now the first one up, the Lelit, does have a pressure gauge, the others do not, and they do not as a standard all run at nine bars, which is massively frustrating but we'll discuss more later. And I'll share at the end the different grind settings used on the same grinder for the same recipe, just so we can see some differences. But first up let's discuss espresso on the Lelit, and having a gauge on here is really nice. Let's pull a shot. Now before we taste we need to stir. So I've upgraded my spoon selection, that's very important, so I'll be stirring with the fanciest little teaspoons from the 1940s because I'm a fancy man. Now I have to say I have enjoyed the shots from the Anna. They have been generally sweet and balanced. What they're lacking often is a little bit of heft, a little bit of texture, a little bit of body. That might be a function of the basket maybe not being quite good enough to allow a really... fine grind for the kind of recipe I would want. So I would hope for a touch more body in the mouth field of the shots that I've had, but overall it has made me very tasty espresso. A little bit impressed by the Lelit. The Rongi Dedica is a funny little machine. It has a very frustrating portafilter so... So I changed the basket on this, it came with a standard pressurized portafilter basket which I don't want to use, so I put a normal 54ml basket in, but to do that I had to sort of damage the portafilter further. It has a little insert inside it, looks a little bit like this. I couldn't get the basket in without taking this out, and in taking this out there's a little screw here that holds the plastic piece in place. The coffee now drips out of this too, so it's a bit messy but it's the only way I could get proper espresso from this. We don't have a ton of height between portafilter spouts and drip trays. which makes getting scales and cups under there not impossible, but not super easy. A little bit more clearance is always appreciated there. Let's pull a shot. Now this needed a coarser grind than the Lelit, and I think that's interesting. And the extraction is notably lower. Now this doesn't err on the side of hot, and if anything, this tastes like a slightly cool shot to me. The acidity is very pronounced, the texture is okay. It doesn't feel like we've had a great extraction here. And I would say For lighter roasts, this will be a difficult setup to get good espresso from. It's running, I think, at quite a high pump pressure, it's not running at a high brew temperature. Those two things in combination with lighter roasts will make it an enormous uphill battle. The more developed the coffee gets, the easier it's going to be to extract, and I suspect the better the shots you'll have. And if you like medium through to dark espresso roasts, then you may have a good experience here. It's not light years better than the cheap DeLonghi that we tested in the sub-£100 category. It is a little better. for sure in terms of shot quality, but not light years better. So broadly pulling shots with the Silvia is quite a pleasant experience. The buttons are very nice, the portafilter feels very nice, but my complaint is brew temperature actually on this one. It runs a little hot. Often you can hear and see a good amount of steam coming out of that group head. That's not ideal. So you might have to do some temperature surfing where you pull out that very hot water by dumping it into the drip tray and then you try to catch it as it reheats. at the right point to get the best possible shot. People have other mods for this, but we'll talk about modding at the end. I've changed out the basket in this to a VST basket because I don't really rate the basket that came as stock, so I'm going to use that instead. Now ergonomically, while the drip tray is a little bit annoying, it doesn't drain super well, having that width to work with is very nice. Let's talk about the espresso. Now I've had a range of shots from the Silvia and they've all been pretty good. Having a good basket in there lets me grind finer, that's good. Extractions have been even when I've used a naked portafilter. The frustration for me has been temperature. I've had shots that have had a harshness from brewing a little bit too hot, a sourness from brewing a little... bit too cool, it wanders around a bit in temperature and that for me is a frustration. You can get very very good espresso from this, but you'll also get occasionally frustratingly just kind of off espresso from the brew temp being in a funny place. So the Sage Bambino is an interesting little machine, but unfortunately does come with that pressurized portafilter that I just don't want or particularly need. I get that they exist for people who just want an easier life and don't want an ice grinder, but we're trying to get good espresso here and these things are worthless. So we're gonna use a proper basket in this and pull some proper shots. It's a full featured machine and you can play with stuff like pre-infusion. It's quite easy to do manual pre-infusion if you wanna get into that thing, which seems contrary to having a pressurized portafilter, but they really do seem to be trying to capture the whole wide audience. there's a ton of distance from spouts to drip tray, which suggests they know that people want to put scales underneath. The shots? Well, let's pull one now. Texture is actually okay, but it has used the coarsest grind setting so far for that flow, and that doesn't yield the best tasting shots. If you're using lighter roasts like me, again, we're back to that sour espresso, reasonable texture, reasonable mouthfeel, but I think it's going to be a difficult machine to... absolutely get the best out of with lighter roasts. I'm just frustrated by my inability to access more features in the machine that are so key to good espresso when it has so much control over other stuff like pre-infusion and shot volumes and all this. the sort of stuff you would want. Not bad, simply not the best of the group. So now the Gadget Classic Pro, a machine that I'm sort of familiar with, but not. Now, pulling shots with this was broadly pretty enjoyable. Again, got rid of the stock basket. Get rid of the stock basket. Put a VST basket in, still using the portafilter that I don't really love it, and with a different basket, the fit is a bit frustrating here. Now, one feature this thing has is it has a solenoid valve. It has a pressure release valve that dumps any excess pressure at the end of the shot into the drip tray. That does make back. back-to-back shots quickly, relatively easy. You don't get what someone once described as portafilter sneeze, when you immediately release the portafilter and some pressure leaks out like that. So the shots, let's pull a shot. Now as you can see from the shot, one frustration that's very clear is the spout to drip tray height. There's not a lot of room to get a scale and a set of espresso cups in there or a cappuccino cup or whatever you want to use. Secondly, this thing definitely runs at high pressures, that's kind of a well-known thing and we'll talk about more in a bit. that later, but it did allow me to pull shots at a much finer grind setting than anything else. However, like the Ranchilio, the temperature does wander around a little bit. It is possible to have it overheat and have some steam when you flush the grip head, or have it run below temperature, so a bit of a temperature surfing routine will yield you the best tasting espresso. As for how this shot is... pretty good. Not overly acidic, but it has a certain sort of harshness that I associate with higher pump pressures. Now that could be, and may well be, confirmation bias, right? Like, I'm seeing something that I expect to be there, but that shot flowed at a nice kind of time, 18 in, 38 out, in 28 to 29 seconds. That shouldn't have that kind of texture and quality of woodiness and bitterness that hasn't been present in other shots. Again, we'll talk about modding, but as stock, it is It is frustratingly close to great, but the espressos aren't superb. Milk steaming is a really important part of a good espresso machine at home, so that's what we're going to look at next. First test is very simple, it's just power. I've got 150 grams of cold milk, I'm going to steam it to 60 degrees Celsius on each of the machines and we're going to see how quick it is. So aside from the speed test, which was interesting, let's talk about the actual experience of steaming milk. Now the Lelit was okay. It has underneath its sort of auto frothing attachment a regular steam wand that I wanted to use because that's significantly better than using the little attachments that it comes with. wasn't super well powered, but I got some reasonably good milk texture out of it. I wasn't upset by it. Not the slowest, not the worst. Steaming was okay. The De'Longhi Dedica has this automated sort of steam wand part that helps add foam, add air to your milk for you. This was This was the most difficult to get great texture from. You got pleasantly fluffy milk, but if you wanted something a little silkier, a little bit easier to pour latte out with, you'd really kind of struggle here. The Silvia was a beast. This was the closest to steaming with a commercial steam wand of any of these machines. It was incredibly quick, incredibly powerful. I've been steaming milk for a long time, so I loved that. But if I was new to steaming milk, this would be intimidating. This would be tricky. I would make a mess a whole bunch of times before I got my milk texturing down. So not the easiest. but if you know what you're doing, a real pleasure to steam with. Now the Sage was a surprise. You could tell going in that milk was a big part of its sell. It's got a full featured set around milk steaming, so you can use it as a manual sort of milk steamer, which is what I would do and what I did, and the results were really very good. I thought it would be slow, but actually it gave me lots of time to do what I needed to do, to have a phase of adding air, sort of stretching the milk, and then going into a phase of kind of rolling it around. The end result was very good. Not the quickest, but kind of the- easy to learn with. If I was teaching someone to steam milk for the first time, this would be a good machine to do it on. Now it does have some extras. It's got some automated milk steaming that lets you choose your end temperature. There's a little thermometer built into the drip tray and it'll let you choose your texture as well. That's great. If you don't want to get into how to steam milk and you want some good results, that's kind of impressive to me. And again, where they've skimped on build, they've really gone hard on features and milk is a big one here. So this was a pleasant surprise. the manual steaming was very good. Now with the Gadget, I was actually a little disappointed. It felt underpowered, so much so that I had to steam twice to check that I hadn't done something wrong or something had gone awry. But actually we repeated exactly the same result on both tests. I had no problem stretching the milk, but where I wanted to kind of roll it around and texture it and mix it, that's where it just didn't seem to have enough pressure and power, and that was a bit disappointing. And it was notable that it was the slowest of them. It got some great texture out of it. I just wanted a bit more pressure from it. So what I'll do now is I'll summarize very quickly the kind of overall experience of each of the machines. The Lelit, I was a little bit impressed by. It's a new brand to me. It's the first time I've used one of their machines. There's a couple of little weak points on it, the milk steaming and the basket that it ships with and the fact that it has a 57 millimeter portafilter for me is a slight frustration, but it produced good results. And I think with a better basket, you'd get a notable increase in shock quality. I think it's very good. value for the money at £350 and comparing it to say something at £190 you can absolutely see where your money is going. The De'Longhi is okay for the money but it's a machine at that price point that says to me it's worth spending more. You get better milk steaming, you get better shots, you get a better build, you get a better experience all around. So I really wouldn't recommend the De'Longhi necessarily but I would understand if you were really budget constricted you can get okay espresso from it. it might frustrate you if you want really great textured flat whites or cafe lattes. The Silvia is the closest to a commercial machine of the group here. It's right at the beginning of that kind of prosumer category where you get sort of miniature commercial machines for the home. The steaming on this thing really impressed me. The build is fantastic. It is heavy, it's hefty, it's very well made. All of the componentry seems extremely good, but for 529 pounds, I'm annoyed that if I owned this, I would want to mod it further and that would cost. cost me at least a hundred pounds plus to add a PID to it, to control the temperature for it. Now there is a substantial community out there of Silvia owners who will help you out. There's tons of guides, there's tons of kits. You would be joining a kind of ecosystem of owners and people who mod these machines if that's what you're into. I would just be slightly frustrated that at the most expensive machine, there's still stuff I want to tweak and change that has a pretty substantial impact on the espresso. Now the sage is super interesting. It's about the same price as the Gadget, but they couldn't be further away. part where you might have a substantial modifying community for the Ranchi Liorace, or actually for the Gadget, you're not going to find one for the Sage. This is not a machine you're going to tinker with or play with, it's not one you're going to get under the hood and mess with, it's too complicated, it's just not built that way. It does have a ton of features and I think they've really identified an audience of people who want good espresso, great milk drinks, who don't necessarily want to become hobbyist baristas. This is for somebody who wants A very enjoyable experience who maybe wants to go through the process of making their own coffee, but they don't want to have to spend too much time investing in their own skill set. Now to round us out we've got the Gadget Classic Pro. Now I did enjoy using this, I know there's a little bit of nostalgia for me, but it's well built, it can pull good shots, like the Silvia. I would want to modify it to have better brew temperatures and actually I'd pretty want to modify it to do better brew pressures. All you would need to do is change some springs and bits inside the overpressure valve, it's not very expensive. And you'll get much better shots. But it requires you voiding your warranty, opening this thing up, tinkering with parts inside, and that's not for everyone. And the way that they're built, they seem to carry a lasting value, and that's kind of the difference. I expect these two machines to hold their value much better than these two machines. The Gadget was pretty good. I like this machine. I think for the money it's good value. I wish it had a bit more steaming power. I wish the temperature was a little bit more stable. I wish it brewed at nine bars. But You can fix those problems. Personally, if I got to keep one of these, which one would I keep? Well, I'd be torn between these two probably because I'm open to modding and I'm interested in that. So these two are in a similar category. But if milk is important, this really is a fantastic little espresso machine for milk steaming. But of course, I don't get to keep these. These all get given away to my Patreon supporters. I'm very grateful to all of them for supporting this channel, giving me budget to just go and buy these. And at the end of it, when I've tested them, when I've shared my opinion... I can give them away. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts down in the comments below. Do you have one of these machines? Are you having a very different experience to me? Have you found other things you like about them or other things you dislike about them? I'd be super interested to hear from you down in the comments below, but for now I'll say thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a great day.

First up we have the Lelit Anna that was £350. We have the De'Longhi Dedica, £189. By far the cheapest in this category, but had a lot of requests to look at this and this seemed like the best opportunity to do so. We've got the Rancheria Silvia. It's £529 is what I paid, so technically out of budget, but I've seen it for around £500, so it was worthy of inclusion here.

We've got the Sage Bambino Plus, that was £399, and at the end here we've got the Gadget Classic Pro, also £399. Important note here, I'm going to use these as mostly stock. I'm not going to modify them heavily, with one small exception.

Where I can, I'll be using a better basket. These two machines both came with pressurised portafilters only. It was such an easy thing to switch out that it seemed worthwhile doing, and in this case with the Gadget and the Radcilio, they're both 58mm portafilters.

I'm going to use a better basket for them too for the espresso testing. That does put the Lelit at a slight disadvantage because it will be using its stock basket, which isn't as good as a VST basket, but it's a 57mm portafilter, and I just couldn't find a basket in time that was of a standard that I was looking for. As to how these were chosen, there was really one criteria, which is that they were broadly available in lots of different parts of the world. There were other machines that were proposed, mostly by my Patreon group, but I picked these because they're kind of the most available and easy to get, and therefore giving this the widest utility, I hope, to you, the viewer. So here's how testing is going to work.

Firstly, I'm going to talk through each individual model in terms of its build, construction, how it's kind of felt to use, some of the ergonomics there. Then, The important stuff, we're gonna pull some shots of espresso with each of them and I'll talk through the kind of espresso I was able to get and if one of them maybe pulls better espresso than another. We'll do some simple milk steaming tests, both how quick it is and the kind of quality of milk that the steam ones on these produce.

At the end we'll wrap up, talk through which one of these will suit you the best based on what you want from an espresso machine owning experience. Let's start with the Lelit Anna. Now I'll be honest, going into this, Lelit was not a brand I knew particularly well.

£350 buys you a pretty solid build. Using this didn't result in the machine sliding around very much. It's got a nice weight to it. The things I liked less about the build, if I'm honest, were the water tank.

Now it just feels a little bit cheap. The way it works, you've got a couple of hoses that go in here, and then just a large plastic tank. And the cutout in the side. I don't think is a great way to assess how much water is in your tank.

There's a common theme today We're going to complain about the the valves for steam ones generally, they just feel a bit cheap and plasticky and I know i'm used to commercial equipment, but but It feels okay the buttons Fine nicely made work well enough. What is a nice inclusion is the pressure gauge here. That is very helpful That's a big plus from me on the build of this thing.

However, the drip tray is one part of this that I don't particularly like. It's quite fussy to get in and out. There's no float in the drip tray, so you have no real way of knowing how full it is. So I always feel nervous if I have to tip a drip tray to lift it out. That makes me concerned if I've got this a little bit too full.

Now the De'Longhi Dedica is coming in at a disadvantage. It is substantially cheaper than anything else here, and you can tell that from the build. Where there might be a lot of metal in other machines, there's a lot of plastic here, even with that kind of chromed finish at the top. Its footprint is tiny. and that might be a big advantage for a lot of people, but it is light, and you definitely have to grip this thing when you lock it in.

And for me, my instinct to grip is to grip it around here, and with my big old hands, I've occasionally pushed buttons while trying to hold the machine in a funny sort of way. And the drip tray is really very small, but it has the convenience at least of having a float to let you know when you're about to make a terrible mess of your kitchen. Water tank, removable, easy to use, clear plastic.

Overall, it's what you'd expect for the money. The Rancheria Silvia is built like an absolute tank. It is by far the heaviest of the units here.

Once it's on the counter where you want it to be, it's going nowhere. This was the easiest to lock in or remove the portafilter from simply because of its weight. It was not going anywhere on the counter. Buttons, switches, very nice high quality stuff on here.

You can feel the sort of build quality of kind of parts here. The steam valve is probably the best of them in terms of feel. though it still does feel like a domestic steam bath in many ways. The water tank is again a bit of a weak point for me.

It's not a great experience to remove. You've got your two hoses. Again it's that white plastic material but you have no real insight into how full your tank is unless you open the lid and have a look. Drip tray, the depth and size isn't bad but it's actually quite difficult to see how much liquid is inside it and there's no float or indicator on here.

But you know that it's too full. So again, this drip tray has caught me out. The Sage Bambino Plus is a more expensive machine, but it has the build quality of something a little bit cheaper because they spent the money on features rather than build. So lots of plastic all over the machine everywhere.

It's very light and that makes it a little bit annoying to get a portafilter into and out of. It will move around on the counter. you're holding the machine.

But the other details are generally pretty good. The water tank, easily removed, and it does have instructions for cleaning printed on the back. The portafilter, a little cheaper and plastic-y.

The buttons at least feel reliable. They're a manufacturer making a lot of things. with a lot of buttons, so you'd expect those to be of good quality. It's not a steam-valved machine. It's an electronic steam controller, which I think is interesting, but we'll talk about that when it's time to steam some milk.

The drip tray is a little bit small, but it does at least have a float in there to let you know that you've got too much liquid and it's time for a little cleaning. It's a tricky one. The build doesn't feel as nice as other machines.

It doesn't feel as solid, it doesn't feel as hefty, but their design decision was to spend money on features, not on build, and we'll see later on how that pans out. Before I get into the Gadget, actually I need to. to have a quick disclaimer or disclosure, I guess.

My first ever coffee job was working for a company that was Gadget UK selling Gadget classics. This was back in 2003. That company no longer exists. It was a great company and very grateful to my first boss, Raj Beadle for encouraging me into a coffee career. Shout out to Raj.

And he now has a separate business that sells these and I bought this from him. So full disclosure about the whole backstory of me and Gadget there. The build is really very good.

This is the Classic Pro, which is new to me. to me in some ways. It has a better switches across the top here. It's got a different steam wand to the kind of traditional, I think they're called Panarello ones, but the build is solid. Brush stainless everywhere. Water tank can be accessed from the front and you can pull it out through the front if you want to, which makes changing water very easy, but you can just still pour in the top and fill this way.

But one little gripe, gotta say the portafilter on this thing doesn't feel great. It's solid and it's hefty, it's a 58 mil portafilter, but just the finish around here didn't feel... premium in a way that some of the other portafilters do. Drip tray is reasonably deep, but again, no float to indicate that you're about to make a horrible, horrible mess. Overall, for 399, the kind of build you would expect from a premium machine.

So here's how espresso testing is gonna work. I'm gonna take a coffee that I know very well. I'm gonna use the fixed recipe across all the machines, which is gonna be about 18 in to 38 grams out in the region of 28 to maybe 32 seconds, depending on the machine and the kind of setup. I want the machines to do the best job they can with the recipe, but by keeping.

this kind of fixed and using the same grinder, we'll be able to understand something about the pressures that the machines are putting out. Now the first one up, the Lelit, does have a pressure gauge, the others do not, and they do not as a standard all run at nine bars, which is massively frustrating but we'll discuss more later. And I'll share at the end the different grind settings used on the same grinder for the same recipe, just so we can see some differences. But first up let's discuss espresso on the Lelit, and having a gauge on here is really nice. Let's pull a shot.

Now before we taste we need to stir. So I've upgraded my spoon selection, that's very important, so I'll be stirring with the fanciest little teaspoons from the 1940s because I'm a fancy man. Now I have to say I have enjoyed the shots from the Anna. They have been generally sweet and balanced. What they're lacking often is a little bit of heft, a little bit of texture, a little bit of body.

That might be a function of the basket maybe not being quite good enough to allow a really... fine grind for the kind of recipe I would want. So I would hope for a touch more body in the mouth field of the shots that I've had, but overall it has made me very tasty espresso.

A little bit impressed by the Lelit. The Rongi Dedica is a funny little machine. It has a very frustrating portafilter so...

So I changed the basket on this, it came with a standard pressurized portafilter basket which I don't want to use, so I put a normal 54ml basket in, but to do that I had to sort of damage the portafilter further. It has a little insert inside it, looks a little bit like this. I couldn't get the basket in without taking this out, and in taking this out there's a little screw here that holds the plastic piece in place.

The coffee now drips out of this too, so it's a bit messy but it's the only way I could get proper espresso from this. We don't have a ton of height between portafilter spouts and drip trays. which makes getting scales and cups under there not impossible, but not super easy. A little bit more clearance is always appreciated there. Let's pull a shot.

Now this needed a coarser grind than the Lelit, and I think that's interesting. And the extraction is notably lower. Now this doesn't err on the side of hot, and if anything, this tastes like a slightly cool shot to me.

The acidity is very pronounced, the texture is okay. It doesn't feel like we've had a great extraction here. And I would say For lighter roasts, this will be a difficult setup to get good espresso from. It's running, I think, at quite a high pump pressure, it's not running at a high brew temperature. Those two things in combination with lighter roasts will make it an enormous uphill battle.

The more developed the coffee gets, the easier it's going to be to extract, and I suspect the better the shots you'll have. And if you like medium through to dark espresso roasts, then you may have a good experience here. It's not light years better than the cheap DeLonghi that we tested in the sub-£100 category. It is a little better. for sure in terms of shot quality, but not light years better.

So broadly pulling shots with the Silvia is quite a pleasant experience. The buttons are very nice, the portafilter feels very nice, but my complaint is brew temperature actually on this one. It runs a little hot.

Often you can hear and see a good amount of steam coming out of that group head. That's not ideal. So you might have to do some temperature surfing where you pull out that very hot water by dumping it into the drip tray and then you try to catch it as it reheats.

at the right point to get the best possible shot. People have other mods for this, but we'll talk about modding at the end. I've changed out the basket in this to a VST basket because I don't really rate the basket that came as stock, so I'm going to use that instead.

Now ergonomically, while the drip tray is a little bit annoying, it doesn't drain super well, having that width to work with is very nice. Let's talk about the espresso. Now I've had a range of shots from the Silvia and they've all been pretty good.

Having a good basket in there lets me grind finer, that's good. Extractions have been even when I've used a naked portafilter. The frustration for me has been temperature. I've had shots that have had a harshness from brewing a little bit too hot, a sourness from brewing a little...

bit too cool, it wanders around a bit in temperature and that for me is a frustration. You can get very very good espresso from this, but you'll also get occasionally frustratingly just kind of off espresso from the brew temp being in a funny place. So the Sage Bambino is an interesting little machine, but unfortunately does come with that pressurized portafilter that I just don't want or particularly need. I get that they exist for people who just want an easier life and don't want an ice grinder, but we're trying to get good espresso here and these things are worthless.

So we're gonna use a proper basket in this and pull some proper shots. It's a full featured machine and you can play with stuff like pre-infusion. It's quite easy to do manual pre-infusion if you wanna get into that thing, which seems contrary to having a pressurized portafilter, but they really do seem to be trying to capture the whole wide audience. there's a ton of distance from spouts to drip tray, which suggests they know that people want to put scales underneath.

The shots? Well, let's pull one now. Texture is actually okay, but it has used the coarsest grind setting so far for that flow, and that doesn't yield the best tasting shots. If you're using lighter roasts like me, again, we're back to that sour espresso, reasonable texture, reasonable mouthfeel, but I think it's going to be a difficult machine to...

absolutely get the best out of with lighter roasts. I'm just frustrated by my inability to access more features in the machine that are so key to good espresso when it has so much control over other stuff like pre-infusion and shot volumes and all this. the sort of stuff you would want.

Not bad, simply not the best of the group. So now the Gadget Classic Pro, a machine that I'm sort of familiar with, but not. Now, pulling shots with this was broadly pretty enjoyable.

Again, got rid of the stock basket. Get rid of the stock basket. Put a VST basket in, still using the portafilter that I don't really love it, and with a different basket, the fit is a bit frustrating here.

Now, one feature this thing has is it has a solenoid valve. It has a pressure release valve that dumps any excess pressure at the end of the shot into the drip tray. That does make back. back-to-back shots quickly, relatively easy. You don't get what someone once described as portafilter sneeze, when you immediately release the portafilter and some pressure leaks out like that.

So the shots, let's pull a shot. Now as you can see from the shot, one frustration that's very clear is the spout to drip tray height. There's not a lot of room to get a scale and a set of espresso cups in there or a cappuccino cup or whatever you want to use.

Secondly, this thing definitely runs at high pressures, that's kind of a well-known thing and we'll talk about more in a bit. that later, but it did allow me to pull shots at a much finer grind setting than anything else. However, like the Ranchilio, the temperature does wander around a little bit. It is possible to have it overheat and have some steam when you flush the grip head, or have it run below temperature, so a bit of a temperature surfing routine will yield you the best tasting espresso.

As for how this shot is... pretty good. Not overly acidic, but it has a certain sort of harshness that I associate with higher pump pressures. Now that could be, and may well be, confirmation bias, right?

Like, I'm seeing something that I expect to be there, but that shot flowed at a nice kind of time, 18 in, 38 out, in 28 to 29 seconds. That shouldn't have that kind of texture and quality of woodiness and bitterness that hasn't been present in other shots. Again, we'll talk about modding, but as stock, it is It is frustratingly close to great, but the espressos aren't superb. Milk steaming is a really important part of a good espresso machine at home, so that's what we're going to look at next. First test is very simple, it's just power.

I've got 150 grams of cold milk, I'm going to steam it to 60 degrees Celsius on each of the machines and we're going to see how quick it is. So aside from the speed test, which was interesting, let's talk about the actual experience of steaming milk. Now the Lelit was okay. It has underneath its sort of auto frothing attachment a regular steam wand that I wanted to use because that's significantly better than using the little attachments that it comes with.

wasn't super well powered, but I got some reasonably good milk texture out of it. I wasn't upset by it. Not the slowest, not the worst.

Steaming was okay. The De'Longhi Dedica has this automated sort of steam wand part that helps add foam, add air to your milk for you. This was This was the most difficult to get great texture from.

You got pleasantly fluffy milk, but if you wanted something a little silkier, a little bit easier to pour latte out with, you'd really kind of struggle here. The Silvia was a beast. This was the closest to steaming with a commercial steam wand of any of these machines.

It was incredibly quick, incredibly powerful. I've been steaming milk for a long time, so I loved that. But if I was new to steaming milk, this would be intimidating. This would be tricky.

I would make a mess a whole bunch of times before I got my milk texturing down. So not the easiest. but if you know what you're doing, a real pleasure to steam with.

Now the Sage was a surprise. You could tell going in that milk was a big part of its sell. It's got a full featured set around milk steaming, so you can use it as a manual sort of milk steamer, which is what I would do and what I did, and the results were really very good. I thought it would be slow, but actually it gave me lots of time to do what I needed to do, to have a phase of adding air, sort of stretching the milk, and then going into a phase of kind of rolling it around.

The end result was very good. Not the quickest, but kind of the- easy to learn with. If I was teaching someone to steam milk for the first time, this would be a good machine to do it on. Now it does have some extras. It's got some automated milk steaming that lets you choose your end temperature.

There's a little thermometer built into the drip tray and it'll let you choose your texture as well. That's great. If you don't want to get into how to steam milk and you want some good results, that's kind of impressive to me.

And again, where they've skimped on build, they've really gone hard on features and milk is a big one here. So this was a pleasant surprise. the manual steaming was very good. Now with the Gadget, I was actually a little disappointed. It felt underpowered, so much so that I had to steam twice to check that I hadn't done something wrong or something had gone awry.

But actually we repeated exactly the same result on both tests. I had no problem stretching the milk, but where I wanted to kind of roll it around and texture it and mix it, that's where it just didn't seem to have enough pressure and power, and that was a bit disappointing. And it was notable that it was the slowest of them.

It got some great texture out of it. I just wanted a bit more pressure from it. So what I'll do now is I'll summarize very quickly the kind of overall experience of each of the machines. The Lelit, I was a little bit impressed by. It's a new brand to me.

It's the first time I've used one of their machines. There's a couple of little weak points on it, the milk steaming and the basket that it ships with and the fact that it has a 57 millimeter portafilter for me is a slight frustration, but it produced good results. And I think with a better basket, you'd get a notable increase in shock quality. I think it's very good. value for the money at £350 and comparing it to say something at £190 you can absolutely see where your money is going.

The De'Longhi is okay for the money but it's a machine at that price point that says to me it's worth spending more. You get better milk steaming, you get better shots, you get a better build, you get a better experience all around. So I really wouldn't recommend the De'Longhi necessarily but I would understand if you were really budget constricted you can get okay espresso from it.

it might frustrate you if you want really great textured flat whites or cafe lattes. The Silvia is the closest to a commercial machine of the group here. It's right at the beginning of that kind of prosumer category where you get sort of miniature commercial machines for the home.

The steaming on this thing really impressed me. The build is fantastic. It is heavy, it's hefty, it's very well made. All of the componentry seems extremely good, but for 529 pounds, I'm annoyed that if I owned this, I would want to mod it further and that would cost. cost me at least a hundred pounds plus to add a PID to it, to control the temperature for it.

Now there is a substantial community out there of Silvia owners who will help you out. There's tons of guides, there's tons of kits. You would be joining a kind of ecosystem of owners and people who mod these machines if that's what you're into.

I would just be slightly frustrated that at the most expensive machine, there's still stuff I want to tweak and change that has a pretty substantial impact on the espresso. Now the sage is super interesting. It's about the same price as the Gadget, but they couldn't be further away. part where you might have a substantial modifying community for the Ranchi Liorace, or actually for the Gadget, you're not going to find one for the Sage. This is not a machine you're going to tinker with or play with, it's not one you're going to get under the hood and mess with, it's too complicated, it's just not built that way.

It does have a ton of features and I think they've really identified an audience of people who want good espresso, great milk drinks, who don't necessarily want to become hobbyist baristas. This is for somebody who wants A very enjoyable experience who maybe wants to go through the process of making their own coffee, but they don't want to have to spend too much time investing in their own skill set. Now to round us out we've got the Gadget Classic Pro.

Now I did enjoy using this, I know there's a little bit of nostalgia for me, but it's well built, it can pull good shots, like the Silvia. I would want to modify it to have better brew temperatures and actually I'd pretty want to modify it to do better brew pressures. All you would need to do is change some springs and bits inside the overpressure valve, it's not very expensive.

And you'll get much better shots. But it requires you voiding your warranty, opening this thing up, tinkering with parts inside, and that's not for everyone. And the way that they're built, they seem to carry a lasting value, and that's kind of the difference.

I expect these two machines to hold their value much better than these two machines. The Gadget was pretty good. I like this machine.

I think for the money it's good value. I wish it had a bit more steaming power. I wish the temperature was a little bit more stable.

I wish it brewed at nine bars. But You can fix those problems. Personally, if I got to keep one of these, which one would I keep? Well, I'd be torn between these two probably because I'm open to modding and I'm interested in that. So these two are in a similar category.

But if milk is important, this really is a fantastic little espresso machine for milk steaming. But of course, I don't get to keep these. These all get given away to my Patreon supporters.

I'm very grateful to all of them for supporting this channel, giving me budget to just go and buy these. And at the end of it, when I've tested them, when I've shared my opinion... I can give them away.

But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts down in the comments below. Do you have one of these machines? Are you having a very different experience to me? Have you found other things you like about them or other things you dislike about them? I'd be super interested to hear from you down in the comments below, but for now I'll say thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a great day.

Transcript for:Espresso Machines Under £500 Review

Transcript for:
Espresso Machines Under £500 Review