Eletta Deluxe Edition ECAM45760S

That is what I did. A positive surprise is that a super automatic is much less hassle to clean up. I have a Delonghi Eletta.

I'm a fan of the Delonghi Elatta (I think that's what it's called) as it does iced as well as hot coffee which is great in summer. It's an automatic style one though. Campos beans or Toby's Estate is my pick!

For plant based milks, most reviews indicate that the KF8 is a step up from the 7 although I’ve seen one or two that state the 7 does fine. Kitchenaid is a new player in the market. No one knows how they’ll do long term but they are a long established kitchen-electrics brand. I have a DeLonghi that’s 18 years old and still going (replaced the boiler once). DeLonghi has readily available parts. Only reason to get the eletta is if you want to brew in travel mugs or do a lot of cold milk drinks. Honestly coming from coffee pods, any SA machine is going to be awesome for you. The ability to grind freshly roasted beans into a drink is night and day compared to pods. A SA is an easy purchase coming from pods or drip. For people coming from a portafilter espresso machine, I have a harder time recommending - they will likely be frustrated with the lack of adjustment as well as the taste from less finely ground coffee extraction.

I am in Au, so this may not be as pertinent. I bought the Eletta, and it was stuffed straight out of the box, steaming into the bean and ground coffee section. It took approximately 7 hours of calls and messaging Delonghi directly to get them to agree on a return. It then took days for them to email me a booking link for a courier. The courier then didn't show, so rinse and repeat. Delonghi has the worst customer service I have ever experienced.

Automatic milk frother. Dial from hot milk to heavy foam, works perfectly every time. I own several manual and semiautomatic espresso machines and vote 2x on the Delonghi magnifica evo. He'll love a superautomatic espresso machine, and the Delonghi is the best on the market. On my Delonghi Eletta (about 2x your price point, but same brew group as the less expensive De'Longhi machines), to clean the milk unit, I just pull the milk frother from the machine, pop off the top, wash out the container, pull off three knobs/ spouts and flush under the faucet. ~20 seconds max. If I leave milk in the unit, I turn the dial to flush, it runs hot, clean water through the nozzle to clean it out. ~10 seconds. Then I put the unit with milk in it, in the fridge. De'Longhi makes great espresso, lots of crema, foam is silky smooth and really creamy. Their machines are easy to use, easy to clean. He should be delighted if he likes espresso.