Philips 5500 LatteGo, the best coffee quickly, cleanly and cheaply

We tested the best Philips super-automatic coffee maker, a way quick and clean to enjoy the best coffee even for the most demanding, with 20 recipes for hot and cold drinks, a color screen with which anyone can prepare any type of coffee, and all at the cheapest possible price per cup of coffee.

There are two types of people: those who enjoy coffee and those who drink it only because they need itand at home we are those two types of people. My wife drinks coffee in the morning out of necessity, I really like to enjoy it, especially after eating. Given this situation, for years I opted for a capsule coffee maker thinking that it was the best way to cover both needs: a quick, clean and simple way to prepare my wife’s morning coffee, without complications, and a way to enjoy a good coffee at midday, buying quality capsules. Or at least that’s what I thought.

After a year and a half using the Philips 2200 LatteGo Super-automatic coffee machines completely convinced me by showing me that they are just as fast and clean as capsule coffee machines, practically as easy to use, but much cheaper to prepare your coffee as you can buy it in beans, and above all, with infinitely better qualityand also without generating waste like capsules. With all this, the jump to the Philips 5500 LatteGo was very simple, offering me the same advantages as the 2200 but with many more coffee options to make and better features.

Features

• 20 varieties of coffee, including hot and cold drinks
• LatteGo system for preparing hot milk with foam
• 40% quieter with the SilentBrew system
• QuickStart quick start system
• TFT screen for visual and intuitive interface
• 4 user profiles to save recipe modifications and guest mode
• Extra Shot system for extra doses of coffee
• Adjustable ceramic grinder
• AquaClean filter to facilitate coffee machine maintenance (5000 cups per filter)
• Coffee bean container with capacity for 275 grams (approximately 30 cups)
• Compartment for use with ground coffee
• Pressure 15 bars
• Application for smartphone HomeID

This 5500 model comes with the LatteGo System, a quick way to prepare hot and foamed milk, perfect for your breakfast cappuccino or for a Latte Macchiato and that cleans up in a moment. Additionally, the box includes an AquaClean filter that is placed in the water tank (1.8 liters) that eliminates limescale from the water before passing through the coffee maker circuit, which makes its maintenance much easier and that Cleaning does not have to be so frequent. According to the manufacturer, that filter will give you 5,000 cups of coffee.you will forget you have a filter before you have to change it. There is also a measuring spoon for using ground coffee, perfect for when you want to use a different type of coffee than the one you have in the bean container, for example, decaffeinated. The content is completed with a small tube of grease for maintaining the coffee maker and a strip to check the hardness of the water during the setup of the coffee maker.

The coffee maker has a modern and elegant design, with quality plastic as the main material in its construction. What stands out most about the coffee maker is its front, with a TFT screen in the center, surrounded by touch buttons to control the operation of the coffee maker. This screen is wonderful because it makes it very easy to use.. My old 2200 was easy to use when making coffee, but it had far fewer options and when you wanted to do other tasks like cleaning or changing the filter, I always had to look at the instructions because I couldn’t remember how to do it. With this screen everything is much more intuitive since the menus in Spanish and the instructions that appear on the screen will not require the instructions at all. Something that my previous coffee maker also did not have was the front light, more useful than it may seem for preparing your coffee in the morning.

At the top we have the coffee bean container, with a capacity of 275 grams, which is enough for about 30 cups of coffee, depending on the intensity of the coffee and the type of drink you usually prepare. Right there we have the rotating wheel to regulate the degree of grinding, with a ceramic grinder that is much more durable than the steel one. You have 12 grinding levels so you can adjust it to your liking depending on whether you want a more intense and bitter coffee (finer) or smoother (thicker). I always have it set to the finest level. You also have a small hatch at the top to use ground coffee, which is useful for when you run out of coffee beans, or to use a different coffee. In my case I use it when I want to prepare a decaffeinated coffee. The lid of the coffee tank closes hermetically to preserve the aroma and quality of the bean.

On the front we have the coffee dispenser that is adjustable in height (8-14 centimeters) to be able to adjust it to the type of cup that we place, the hot water system that we can use to get a cup of water to make tea, that attaches the LatteGo System to prepare milk. Also the water collection tray, necessary since this type of coffee maker uses a lot of water due to all the cleaning cycles that it performs on the circuit both before and after preparing the coffee and which is removed by sliding forward to be able to empty it. By removing it we will also have the ground coffee tank that we can easily empty. The water tank is on the side but is removed from the frontwhich allows you to place the coffee maker close to the wall or piece of furniture, as is the case in my case. The water tank is large (1.8 liters) but as I said before, it uses a lot of water so you will have to refill it frequently. The coffee maker will tell you when there is no water on the screen, but you can also see the level because the tank is transparent on the side.

Coffee preparation

One of the great advantages of this coffee maker is the ability to prepare up to 20 different types of drinks, not only hot, but also cold. The latter has fine print, because the coffee always comes out hot, but it will give you instructions on whether you have to add ice and adjust the amount of coffee to the drink. The recipes also include coffee with milk in different forms (Cappuccino, Latte Macchiato, Iced Latte, Café Latte, etc.). Some of these recipes have their own button on the front, the most popular, the rest you must select from the on-screen menu. The recipes are already defined, but you can always modify the coffee intensity, the quantity and proportion of coffee and milk, as well as choose one or two cups. For these modifications, profiles are useful, you can save the recipes to your liking in your profileand so you won’t have to readjust every time you make your coffee. I am the yellow profile, my wife the blue, my oldest son the red with the decaffeinated. In addition to the 4 user profiles there is another guest profile that does not save the settings.

The coffee preparation time will depend on the type of drink you have selected. An espresso takes about 40 seconds, recipes with milk take a little longer. My cappuccino recipe that includes an “Extra shot” (another additional dose of coffee) and 180ml of milk. about 2 minutes to prepare. Being able to froth milk so simply is a big plus, although admittedly the froth isn’t as fine as I would have liked. Being able to regulate the amount of coffee and milk is something I couldn’t do with my previous 2200 And it is another very favorable point of this 5500, because now if I feel like a large cup of coffee with milk or an Americano I don’t have to add water or milk after finishing the preparation of the coffee maker. In addition to recipe modifications, we can modify the coffee temperature from the system settings, we can even configure a preheat at the start of the coffee maker.

The quality of the coffee is really good, much better than any capsule coffee I’ve tried, and I’ve tried a lot. And all this for a price much lower than that of each capsule. A very good quality coffee like Lavazza Oro costs you about 20 cents per cupand it is one of the most expensive coffee beans you can buy (I leave out gourmet coffees). Nesspreso capsules cost about 50 cents per cup, and if we go for cheaper capsules like the Hacendado ones they would be about 17 cents. There is no color. Depending on the number of coffees you prepare per day, the payback of the coffee maker is assured, and on top of that you will enjoy much better coffee.

Cleaning the coffee maker

The only item you should clean after each use is the LatteGo system, if you have used it. Cleaning is done in a few seconds under the tap thanks to the fact that it does not have any type of tube to clean. It disassembles into two pieces (+ the lid) and can even be put in the dishwasher. If you have leftover milk when preparing the milk, you can use the QuickClean function in the menu for a quick rinse and store the LatteGo with the milk in the refrigerator to use again later. You should clean the water collection tray and the ground coffee container when the coffee maker tells you to, which will happen more or less frequently depending on your use, but normally every two days.

There are other deeper cleanings you should do, such as cleaning the internal coffee preparation system that must be done every weekdegrease the unit with degreasing tablets every month and lubricate the coffee preparation group every two months. Changing the AquaClean descaling must be done when the machine indicates it, as should descaling the coffee maker. We can see all this with step-by-step instructions on the coffee maker screen, or within the HomeID application for our smartphone.

HomeID app

The coffee maker has an application that is very interesting for you to install. HomeID is available on both iPhone (link) as on Android (link). In addition to being able to access the instruction manual, watch videos on how to clean and know important details such as the importance of the grinding degree or the temperature of the coffeeyou can see special recipes such as Moroccan coffee, hot coffee with Nutella or Espresso Tonic.

Editor’s opinion

The Philips 5500 super-automatic coffee maker is the brand’s most advanced model. Its screen and touch control panel, the enormous variety of recipes available, the ease of use and the possibility of modifying parameters of your coffee such as the temperature or quantity of coffee and milk add to the fact that you will get quality coffee, freshly ground and with all its flavor, and all of this at the lowest possible price. If you like coffee and want to enjoy it without complications, you have no better option. You can buy it on Amazon for €699 (link)

• Editor’s rating
• Rating 4.5 stars
• Exceptional

^€699

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• LatteGo 5500
• Review of: Luis Padilla

• Posted on: November 26, 2024

• Last modification: November 26, 2024

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