Customer Reviews

Gaggia 90951 Platinum Vision Automatic Espresso Machine with Milk Island, Platinum

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've had this machine for a few days now and I absolutely love it. It by far trumps the quality of local shops and Starbucks (not that they make quality). The options on the machine allow you to create your own drink in your own flavor. The worst thing about this machine is how easy it is and how much you'll end up drinking. It's just too easy to press a button and boom, delicious espresso.

From off to espresso in no time flat!
If you want your drink fast, look no further than this machine. Going from completely off to drink ready takes about 1 minute. You can brew in no time so this machine was made for speed.

Touchscreen
I can't say it's greatly responsive. Obviously it's expensive and new so you want to be nice with it but that screen takes some hard pressure. Maybe they built it tough to last but you can't just tap it. You have to jab it sometimes. Not a complaint really. It seems like a strong screen.

Drinks
There are three drink options: espresso, coffee, and long coffee. You can control the amount of water, temperature, aroma, flavor, and strength. It's crazy. Once you get down you're favorite flavor though, it's just a simple button press. I like a caffe corretto once in a while so I like that you can throw in pre-ground decaf for a one time cup and then just go back to your regular settings.

Steaming
The wand is very articulated and easy to clean. The steam comes quick and stays consistently hot. You can steam milk fast enough to make yourself a cappuccino in under 2 minutes. I haven't tried the hot water option but I'm sure that works fine.

Drip Tray
It moves! The tray moves up and down via a touch sensitive button on the machine. It will move from the counter to nearly touching the spouts. The cover on the tray appears to be magnetic so it just attaches easily to the tray top. It slides on and off very easily but will not come off accidentally.

Warming tray
It warms decently fast. It doesn't get too hot or anything. Not much to say about it except it feels a bit small for how big the machine is.

Pure water
This machine has a water purifier included. I'm not sure if it is required to run the machine yet.

Maintenance
It has a lot of maintenance features including keeping track of your descaling schedule. It has you test your water hardness and program it in so it can remind you when you should descale. I haven't had to run any maintenance on it yet but it seems like everything is basically fully automated for it.

Auto Standby
I can't say if this goes into a real low power mode or what but it has a standby feature. After 1 or 4 hours it will standby. I think it just turns the heating off. Turning the warming tray off is optional.

Scheduling
It has a scheduling feature to set wake up and power off times for separate days.

Be aware!
The first few shots might suck. My first shot was 90% water with a dirty color to it. It took a few shots before the machine put out good shots. Not sure if this was a fluke or just my machine or just the machine calibrating but after about 3 failed shots they were all good.

I did not buy this product on Amazon but I use amazon a lot and wanted to put a review up. I did not purchase it with the milk island. The milk island was quite unnecessary. I do not recommend buying the machine with the milk island if you can get it without the island for a better price.

We purchased this machine about a month ago. Granted, the first one we received was broken - we had two engineers, a couple of account managers and an IT guy trying to fix it, but they couldn't. We called Amazon and received the working one two business days later.

WOW. I can't tell you how much espresso we've gone through in the past month. The machine is easy to use, and it's actually kinda fun! With one push of a button, you have a professional quality espresso in less than a minute. The milk frothing takes longer, but if you haven't had your espresso yet, it's not too difficult to wait. :) There are three options - espresso (strong), coffee (espresso with a little more water) and long coffee (I looked it up - it's basically a weaker, more bitter espresso with twice the volume of water). I've learned how to make an Americano just like at Starbucks, and it's cheaper and more convenient. Yes, the machine itself is expensive - but I'll get into that later.

I've seen several reviews here that say the Milk Island is useless - all of us at the office think it's a VERY cool gadget. As long as you make sure the light is green and you don't overfill the carafe (the "MAX" line is there for a reason), it works perfectly. We haven't had a single issue. It froths the milk very well, and if you don't like as much foam, you can turn it off before it finishes its cycle. Also, I've seen that "oily" beans supposedly don't work well - we've been through two bags of "oily" espresso beans from Cost Plus and they didn't jam the machine or cause any problems. Yes, we also ordered a bag of the Lavazza Super Crema, but when it's gone we'll just run up the street and get more Cost Plus beans.

I worked it out - a Starbucks latte costs roughly $4. A homemade latte costs $0.40. Taking into account the high cost (and high quality) of this machine, and the number of espressos/lattes we make daily, I figure this machine will pay for itself in about three months. Of course, that isn't such a good thing for Starbucks...but it's great for us!

Wow! This machine is pretty slick.
1) The machine: definitely idiot proof and seems quite sturdy. The touch screen works well and is well set into the frame of the machine. Some touch screens seem to "give" a bit into the machine when you push them. The machine is pretty quiet. MUCH quieter than the Delonghi machines. The crema hasn't been as impressive as when I used to tamp and pull myself, but the flavor is excellent. Havn't had any problem with "oily" beans. Boot up is quite fast, and the machine has lots of prompts to let you know when to empty something, or add water, or attach the milk island. Out of the box, set up was easy. It states that there is a coffee grinder adjusting tool in the box, which I searched for extensively. I then discovered that the end of the coffee scoop has the wrench tool on it. Would have been nice of those Italians to let us americans in on this one.

2)The milk Island: I wasn't very clear on how this thing worked. Basically, you place your milk/soy milk/almond milk into the container between the min and max lines, and then turn the knob. I was used to using a thermometer, so I wasn't sure what to do here. It froths the milk nicely, and I usually just turn it off when it doesn't seem to be frothing any more, or if the sound changes pitch. Not very scientific, but I have been pleased with the results. Gaggia recommends that you take the thing apart after use, which is a bit more work than just cleaning out a metal frothing pitcher. The island has about 7 parts, and I would hate to lose one down the disposal. But, it is simple, and my daughters can now make a Latte for dad on a saturday morning. A great achievement for any parent!!

I must say that I was very skeptical about getting a superautomatic machine. All I read about them is how they make inferior coffee and are super expensive and unreliable. I decided to get this one because it got to be really tedious to make coffee for everyone in the family all the time. Despite my trying to teach my wife how to do it with a semi-automatic machine (a Gaggia Twin), she just refused to learn.

In any case, I decided to give this machine a try and I must say I have been extremely impressed. The machine is supereasy to setup and extremely easy to use--you basically just press a button. It can be customized in many ways, but I basically just used the standard settings.

As for the coffee, it is absolutely superb--extremely awesome coffee. We have had it for 6 months and have not had one single problem. I am extremely impressed by it's reliability. This machine is being used every single day and it has not had one malfunction.

I cannot recommend this enough. Excellent product !!

BJ

I waited for a long time before buying an automatic expresso machine. I read all the reviews and monitored prices. I finally took the leap and spent the money to purchase the Gaggia 90951 Platinum Vision Automatic Expresso machine with milk island. It does make good coffee, expresso and lattes however there are a few features that are not to my liking.
First - the machine does not give a low water warning before you start to make a cup of coffee. You find out the water is low right in the middle of brewing. When you add water you have to start the cycle over again. Secondly, When you empty the coffee grounds drawer and replace it - it doesn't always go back in easily. Thirdly, I like the idea of the milk island but you have to hold it in place to keep the green light on. If the red light comes on - you have to close the steam knob and adjust the milk island and start all over again. It's also very noisy when it steams the milk in the mild island. Finally, The machine is also very large and takes up quite a bit of space on the counter. Overall I enjoy having an automatic expresso machine but I would definitely make some enhancements if I were designing this machine.

Have owned it for almost a month. Makes great expresso, capuccino, and coffee at the touch of the screen. Easy cleanup, no fuss. Adjustable settings are a great feature. Refilling water tank and removing spent grounds are very easy.

Pays for itself by not paying at the coffee stores in 1-2 years.

Would highly recommend.

I think that the Vision is wonderful. All I do in the morning is push the button, steam my milk, and viola- latte! It saves me time, which I like! The product came promptly in absolute perfect condition and all I had to do is put water in it. Nothing broken or cracked. Definitely a great investment, especially in saving money going to the coffee shop.

I looked a long time, as this is an expensive item. This one is perfect, after a year it still performs perfectly, cleans easy and froths easily. A consistently good espresso, capa, even american coffee. No problems at all.

We've had the Platinum Vision in service for about 2 months now. During that time, we've made about 160 espressos, and with that experience, some thoughts/information:

The machine is fairly idiot proof. I don't drink coffee, but Laura does, and I wind up making the lattes for her. I'm told that my product is better than an average barrista, and I really don't know what I'm doing. Laura is a technophobe, but once configured, the touch screen interface is intuitive and efficient enough for her to run without incident.

The container sizes are a bit small. There are containers for water, ejected grounds, bypass water, and a hopper for the beans. I find that the machine needs to be fed or emptied fairly every couple of days, only making 2-3 espressos/day. We're short on counter space, so a smaller machine was all we could fit, but I find this a little annoying.

The milk island works pretty well. Seating it can be a little finicky, and it can become unseated if you do a poor job of installing it. The base needs to be well supported, and you need to lean on it, while rotating the carafe to make sure it seats well. Cleaning the carafe fairly thoroughly each day is important. If the works get gummed up, it doesn't foam the milk very well any longer.

The error messages can be pretty cryptic. I suppose this is why I'm writing this review, to provide a little troubleshooting advice. Today, when the machine did its power up rinse cycle, the touch screen provided the error "Prime Water Circuit", and emitted clicking sounds. It would do the same when asked to brew coffee. The message is nowhere in the manual, and I couldn't find an interpretation anywhere on the web. The milk island would foam milk, so water was getting to the boiler successfully. Cleaning the brew group made no difference. Eventually I found that the strength control knob on the front of the machine made a difference. It must provide some back pressure, and the knob was at it's strongest setting. Apparently, it had completely shut off the machine's ability to emit coffee, and the "prime water circuit" was it's way of telling me that. Once the strength knob was backed off a little bit, operation returned to normal.

UPDATE - 9/27/11

We've now lived with the machine for 10 months, and it's still working great. I was a little nervous about buying something with a ton of working parts, but it's been solid for us.

We've had this unit for about 11 months. When it works it is brilliant, making very good espresso and lattes at the touch of a button. We were religious about keeping it clean.

The first thing to go, 2 weeks in, was the milk island. It's a poor design vulnerable to small drops of milk that get inside the island and literally short it out. The small circuit board actually melted inside the plastic housing. Annoying, but given the well-functioning steam wand, not a huge problem.

Over time water started leaking from under the machine while coffee was being brewed. This got progressively worse until scalding hot water pours out the steam wand during the brew cycle, which renders the $1400 unit useless unless you like wet counter tops. Looking online one sees that there is a known problem with steam valves routinely failing on Gaggia machines. Of course, you can't service it yourself, and Gaggia/Importika are of little help. In the end, you have to find someone who can fix it at substantial cost and inconvenience.

For $1400 one would expect better reliability or at least easy access to replace worn parts.

We certainly won't buy another one of these despite the wonderful convenience and quality coffee it produces. I have learned that it's better to buy a "prosumer" grade semi-automatic with user-serviceable parts and better materials (steel, copper, nickel) to start with. Yes, you pay more up front and lose one-touch convenience but you gain much longer life and even better quality beverages.