Wait for the replacement or order a new one, this is a very good machine and works well with beginners. Decent shot can be pulled easily.
I have been using this for almost 9 months now
It's only been a month and the machine works flawlessly. Of course it's a step up from your instant coffee. The steam wand on the other hand, I cannot say it's weak per-se, though it requires practice to properly steam your milk which I still haven't been able to, though after practice I'm sure even this won't be an issue
My setup costs about this much and Iāve made some amazing coffee on good days.
Delonghi dedica ec890 - 15k from amazon
This comes with a decent portafilter, and a really solid tamper
Hibrew g5 - 19k from fixcoffee
Any generic scale with 0.1g accuracy - <3k
WDT tool - <3k
This should allow you to make an amazing cup of coffee once youāve learnt how to dial in the right settings.
The only downside of the dedica ec890 is that the steam wand is infamous for being really hard to use. Latte art is going to pe a pain if you were interested in that.
Otherwise, great value for money.
Once youāre comfortable with this setup, I suggest you upgrade to a non pressurised basket with a bottomless portafilter (~4-9k depending on the brand).
I used this really cool symbol called <, you should read up on what that means.
DF54 didnāt have an authorised seller in India when I was buying my setup, and the cost was coming out to be almost 30k from the only place that looked legit.
The difference between the g5 and df54/64 is going to be negligible for milk drinks, and I donāt drink light roasts.
The portafilter is basically a holder for the basket, and the basket is where your ground coffee go. The whole thing is then attached into the coffee machine to begin extraction.
A bottomless portafilter usually comes with its own non pressurised basket.
The portafilter that comes with the machine (ec890) is not bottomless and comes with a pressurised basket.
Pressurised vs non pressurised is a really quick >10 min explanation on YouTube, I highly recommend reading up on this.
I've just made this decision myself. I'll sum it up for you, if you want just milk less espresso drinks, go for the ec890. In addition to decent espresso, if you want a decently powered steam wand for milk based drinks, choose the ec685, which is what I chose. Being delivered tomorrow.
More info:
The 685 has a better steam wand once you remove the Panarello and use the rubber wand instead by tying a zip tie to hold it in place. The 890's wand is infamous for being underpowered, thus people struggle to get microfoam.
The 685 steam wand can be swapped out for a rancilio steam wand to improve power and performance - usually costs 3-4k to do. I plan to do this in the future if needed.
890 does cold brew.
Both can and should ideally be used with a bottomless portafilter if you have a grinder that can dial in espresso.
685 is much cheaper currently so imo, it's the better value machine for all intents and purposes. But again, everything depends on individual use cases.
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Bambino Plus
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Fast heat-up, easy for beginners; inconsistent shots, annoying cleaning.
Acceptable-Thanks324
