23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Great combo product.
Makes a good cup of coffee and the espresso machine part is easy to use and does a good job. I really like the built in milk frother. As long as you rinse it right away it is easy to clean and makes perfectly frothed milk everytime! The 1/5 feature allows you to make a half a pot of coffee that still tastes good.
77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
Good coffee, but...
2/15/07 - Received coffee maker with minor outside box damage but eveything seemed intact. Made several pots of very good coffee and espresso but after 4 days the main switch and digital readout went crazy and the water heating element for the coffee side refused to turn off. I had to unplug the unit fearing a fire. I am returning the unit to Delonghi. I will review the...
2/15/07 - Received coffee maker with minor outside box damage but eveything seemed intact. Made several pots of very good coffee and espresso but after 4 days the main switch and digital readout went crazy and the water heating element for the coffee side refused to turn off. I had to unplug the unit fearing a fire. I am returning the unit to Delonghi. I will review the new unit after I have had it for a while.
4/2/07 - I recieved the new unit in good condition and set it up with some trepidation (see earlier review). All the functions work fine and the coffee/espresso maker has been chugging along fine. It has made more than 50 pots of very good coffe and about 30 pots of espresso that even my Cuban colleagues enjoy. Based on my experience with the new unit so far, I would increase my rating to 4 stars, however Amazon will only allow one review per person.
7/15/08 When I first started using this product, I must admit that I was impressed. It packed a lot of funtionality in a reasonably priced product. I have now had this machine a little over a year and I can no longer use the coffee side of the machine because it leaks water all over my counter. Since it was out of warranty, I disassembled the machine to find out what was leaking. There was a fitting at the top of the machine where the water was pumped from the reservoir to the sprayer. I could not take that fitting apart because all of the screws were rusted completely. They just fell apart when I tried to unscrew them. I would think that a company such as this could afford to spend a few extra cents per machine to put in stainless steel screws! Is this another example of planned obsolescence? Based on this experience, I would downgrade my rating to one star.
12/18/09 Well now a little over a year after the coffee side went belly up, the expresso side has now bitten the dust as well. Into the trash bin it goes. Wow! for $150 you would think you should get more than two years use out of a coffee machine. DeLonghi... Never again!!! Definately downgraded to one star, if that.
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I loved this coffee maker for the first 11 months...then it broke (leaks water EVERYWHERE). Delonghi customer service is awful! This item was a gift, and they are refusing to repair the item and they require me to ship it to them at my cost -- not reimbursed. This is one of the most frustrsting consumer experiences that I have ever dealt with, and the Delonghi reps whom I have spoken with have complete disregard for the situation. It is sad because this has the potential to be a great product, but it is not backed-up by the manufacturer who is making repair or replacement impossible. Buyer beware...
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Makes a good cup of coffee and the espresso machine part is easy to use and does a good job. I really like the built in milk frother. As long as you rinse it right away it is easy to clean and makes perfectly frothed milk everytime! The 1/5 feature allows you to make a half a pot of coffee that still tastes good.
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Last December I bought the BCO-130T machine. I thoroughly enjoyed it - the coffee it made and the very good espresso and cappuccino. It worked fine for awhile. About June/July it started leaking water from the bottom of the machine. I called the suggested repair facility in Virginia. As soon as I started to explain the problem to the owner, he told me the problem and that it was common and the machine would be replaced. I sent it in for repairs. Well that process took about 8 weeks, an absolutely ridiculous amount of time.
I finally get a replacement and now a couple/few months later this new machine is also leaking. So now I am two for two of machines that are defective and do not work. Although I have "had" the machine for about 11 months I have not been able to use it but about 8+months.
I have no confidence whatsoever in going through the process again not to mention that I will again have to pay shipping and be without a coffee maker for weeks. To spend ANY more money on this inferior product would be throwing good money after bad.
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The drip coffee is excellent. I love the programmable timer and ease of making coffee and cleaning. The machine is quiet and makes coffee very quickly.
The espresso maker is great. The machine makes excellent espresso with espresso beans, I repeat here, espresso beans. It is also quiet, which I really like! There were a couple of tricks I had to learn - one is to make sure that the "taste" dial is not positioned all the way to "strong" otherwise the espresso machine skips making espresso and instead sends the steam to the foamer. I like the foamer but it is a bit particular. First, it must be cleaned right away and the foamer does make a bit of a mess all over on the inside of the unit - milk seems to bubble out and go under the removable milk compartment and get into hard to reach places to clean. Second, the foamer works well with skim milk or 2% but not so well with whole milk - this is stated in the instructions as well. I love whole milk in my cappucino so that was a bit of a drawback for me.
Overall, I have really enjoyed having this machine and look forward to making either coffee or espresso. It is a bit particular in that everything needs to be exactly right for it to work otherwise issues will arise. I've got it dialed now. I would advise reading instructions all the way through once and look over diagrams, then go back and read instructions and set up new machine step by step. It makes everything easier to understand.
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Few things that could be better but overall a very good machine.
The weak points are:
1. Instructions are so-so, not as direct and to the point as they could be if this is your 1st cappuccino machine. After a few brews, you should finally get it all down pat.
2. The carafes do not have hinged lids so they are a pain to use. Having had many coffee makers in the past, I was surprised to see this on an 'upscale' coffee maker. If you pour to quickly, they tend to spill coffee on the counter.
Now for the good part, once you figure it out it makes excellent coffee and cappuccino. I'm a coffee drinker but my wife prefers cappuccino. So she decided that a combination machine would be a great Christmas present rather then a seperate machine because it would take less counter space. It is an addes bonus that it can make both at the same time. We researched a lot of machines before landing on this one and are both quite happy with the results. As I said, in the big picture, the complaints were minor and if we were to do it over again, we would still purchase this machine.
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I got this machine as a wedding gift and was very happy with it. One day a small piece that fits into the filter holder broke during my washing. That was six months after I got the machine. Then I contacted delonghi's costumer service........After 3 weeks they sent me the wrong piece ( I won't even comment on the fact that the pice costs U$$3,00 and the shipping U$$10,00, as another reviewer had already pointed). I contacted then again and after 1 week I got another wrong piece.....
Now I have been emailing them and they just won't reply....And, of course, my credit card has been charged!
So I repeat...is that costumer service?
That is definetely the worst service I ever got in this country!
So I would advise everybody to stay away from it! Cause every now and then any machine will need some maintenance....
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I loved it but it has broken 1 year after I bought it and of course it is out of warranty now. A coffee maker should work a lot longer than that! I would say 2 stars now!
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I bought this unit to replace my Krups combo unit, which served me well for many, many years. I read all the reviews before I took the plunge. There must be something I missed.
It makes excellent coffee.
It makes excellent espresso.
But oh man, that foamer is a dud. Some days it makes decent crema. Some days it makes milk with a few dying bubbles. We have experimented, doing the crema separately, doing it on top of the espresso, cold milk, super cold milk, washing the foaming unit in cold water before using, varying the freshness of the milk... I'm sure there are more variables we have tried. Results: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
We've only had it a couple of months and are DESPERATE to buy a unit that works as well as my poor old Krups did, in its prime.
If anyone has found the foaming secret, PLEASE tell me because my cappuccino and I are very sad most mornings.
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This machine does make good coffee as long as it is working. Unfortunately, working is the operative word. We had our machine for 8 months when the pump in the coffee maker failed. DeLonghi replaced the machine since it was still within the warranty period (Save your receipt!). The replacement machine began leaking water all over the counter after about 10 months and soon the pump failed again. Since the ORIGINAL purchase has been more than a year ago there is no warranty on this machine. DO NOT BUY THIS MACHINE. Our basic plain Jane inexpensive coffee makers have been far more dependable than this rather expensive device.
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