Saeco PicoBaristo Super Automatic Espresso Machine, 1.8 L, Stainless Steel, HD8927/47

This machine was a great buy. Top quality. The elegant design is a show off. The coffee varieties you get out this machine is like a original italian baristo just great and very tasty and easy to operate with a touch of a button. Just get the right coffee beans and not the cheap ones. The display guides you through every step of the way so you can't do anything wrong. The Milk carafe is a great and clean feature. Easy to attach to the machine and to detach to store in to the fridge. Another great feature is the machine cleans itself. The cappuccino looks exactly like in the Pico Baristo introduction video. The $1500.00 Pico Barito is worth every cent for someone that loves these coffee varieties. I highly recommend this compact Coffee Machine.

This new Saeco PicoBaristo is replacing our last PicoBaristo that just bit-the-dust from a "failed gear" icon that popped up in the display, but it was 10 years old!!! And, I think I can fix it with another gear module installed thanks to so many PicoBaristo repair videos on YT. We can't be without our morning Latte and/or Expresso for any length of time (this machine has us spoiled), so we just couldn't wait for me to fix it. Once repaired, we will have two identical machines (probably give it to one of our kids). EXCELLENT machine with no problems for 10 years, until now...

Updated to add - unit will only brew coffee on <10% of attempts. Did all of the troubleshooting and we sometimes get 1-3 cups before it fails again. A $1500 coffee maker should last more than 2.5 years of relatively light use (3-5 cups per day). Routine maintenance was performed (descaling and cleaning the brew group). Philips solution is to take the machine to a service center near me. The closest is over 500 miles away. It will cost more to ship then by a new machine from a hopefully more reliable company. Philips puts out a shoddy product and won't stand behind it. Extremely Poorly Designed Grinding Unit After the second addition of beans the thin plastic holding in the magnet broke when we needed to add beans the third time we kept getting an error message. Since this had happened to so many others we had and idea of what happened and finally managed to find the magnet just above the grinder itself. Since it was still under warranty the company agreed to a repair but the only solution was to ship it back leaving us with no coffee machine for several weeks. We ended up taping the magnet back in place and it has been holding. The bean hopper itself is badly designed. The beans poured into the front don't make it into the back which effectively cuts the amount of beans the machine holds in half. For the amount of money this machine costs they should have designed both the magnet and the bean storage much better.

We recently replace a 15 year old Saeco Incanto Deluxe after 25.000 + cups. We have been using this machine for 8 months now and it is a big improvement. Other than normal maintenance the only other issue we had with the old machine was rusting of the housing and some leakage on the counter below. Seaco has addressed these issues by replacing most parts subject to moisture with durable, attractive plastic. Additionally this machine is truly automatic. With a push of a button it produces a perfect drink every time. As with all machines the quality of the drink is highly related to the quality of the beans. We had one interaction with Saeco customer service when the machine "lost its mind" possibly due to an electrical storm. The agent was great and talk me through a reset in just a few minutes. Other than the housing this machine uses mostly tried and true parts such as brew unit, boiler etc from previous units.

Quality of finished coffee drink. Relatively complicated to operate. Second Saeco Espresso machine we have owned, first chip programmed model. On the expensive side as it is a premium model, however purchased thru Amazon at discounted price. And the maker is almost stunningly attractive.

UPDATE: I found the magnet that fell out of the hopper door in the coffee beans I dumped out while preparing to return. I put the magnet back in the slot, taped in place with a small bit of Scotch tape and wahallah. Worked great. Been more than a year now. No issues. So, other than the stupid bean dooe switch, now resolved, this has been a great purchase. Just a one star ding for the pain and suffering. \\\\ Prior Review >> I had a great refurbished Saeco automatic I bought on Amazon which worked flawlessly for almost 7 years before the brew unit started leaking. The thing paid for itself many times over in saved Starbucks fees. I decided to replace it with a new machine and after looking at all the reviews got this HD8927/47 with the milk cartridge. It worked great for about a month. Nice cappuccinos, macchiatos, espresso and cafe creamas. Tonight, the machine kept saying the hopper door was closed. I tried opening and closing. Emptied the grounds and water in the rinse tray, cleaned the brew unit, emptied the hopper unit and made sure that there were no obstructions in the ground coffee dispenser, as per the manual. Nothing worked. It was kind of obvious that there was a circular prong on the hopper door which probably had a magnet in it … but no more. Was the magnet in the bean hopper? In the grinder? With my lost socks? Anyway, poor design and likely to be a repeat issue based on recent feedback. So, I returned it. Might go back to the coffee press … takes a few minutes longer, but great coffee just the same.

Just got this little hummer today, and am in love! 1) The coffee is hot at standard setting and the high setting it is burn your mouth hot. So, I don't get the reviews... are these people dragons? Jeebus! 2) I am lactose intolerant and this bebe steams oatmilk and froths it quite amazingly. I mean it's not wand velvety magicness, but it is still great for someone like me that couldn't give 2 sh*ts about latte art. 3) I use the super nonoily organic beans and they are delish. This is not an issue at all. 4) It takes like no time to make a drink. 5) Clean up is stupid easy and I just empty the grounds at the end of the day if used, because the idea of potential mold grosses me out.

I like the look on the counter. It is a very nice looking small appliance. It makes great cups of coffee...it is truly as good as any espresso you can get at any restaurant or coffee bar. However, the machine can get persnickety. I have found that the electronics associated with the "catch-all" water and coffee grounds tray/container is giving me false readings and it seems to be happening more frequently as the machine ages (Ive had it for three months now), as well as the electronics associated with the lid on the coffee bean reservoir. It too is giving me an error code, telling me to "close the coffee bean lid". Of course, when I opened and closed it a few time, cleaned out the machine thoroughly, and placed it back into service, it gave me the same error. Being an engineer, I figured that the magnetic switch inside the machine had failed and to fix it, I used a rare earth magnet (disk shape) to fix the problem. Now I have a disk magnet that sits atop the coffee bean lid so that the machine will recognize that the bean lid is closed. I do plan on sending it back for repair or better, I am going to request a new machine, as it does seem this thing is a "lemon". I have to say, that Saeco has developed a great machine that is easy to clean, easy to run, and makes a great cup of coffee. However, the electronic sensors and switches seem to be of cheap quality as well as some of the plastic parts used on the outside shell, that I think will start to look cheap and plastic like in several years. Way too early for a $1300 coffee machine.

I have owned 3 different espresso machines, this is my first fully automatic one though. I am pleasantly surprised at how well it does what it is suppose to do. The espresso is rich and has good crema, and everything seems to work well. There are 2 things that I would recommend, first, when you are making a milk drink, you might want to start with a separate glass under the frothing spout and quickly replace it with the cup you are going to make the coffee in. The reason for this is that about 1/4 ounce of hot water comes out of the spout first, I am assuming this is residual water from the cleaning process, you probably don't want the water in your milk. Second, the unit has a built in flaw, I have called customer support regarding this issue and didn't really get a satisfactory answer, here is the problem.... The grind adjustment it done inside the bean hopper, the only way to access the hopper is to open the hopper lid. As you may know you should never adjust the grind on a burr grinder unless it is actually grinding, even the instruction book is adamant that you only adjust the setting while it is running, the problem is they have a safety feature they have just included that shuts off the grinder when the hopper lid is open, so you can't adjust the grind while it is grinding. I have tried several different things, like a magnet, to fool the machine into thinking the door is closed, but nothing seems to work. There is some sort of electronic magnet on the lid that makes contact when closed and communicates with the machine. The only way you might be able to get away with adjusting the grind when the grinder is idle is if it has no beans in the burrs (not the hopper, you have to make sure the beans are out of the actual burrs so you have to run it for a minute after the hopper is empty). Then you can make the adjustment with damaging the grinder (I haven't tried it to see if it works yet, but my guess is that the grinder will shut off when the hopper is either low or empty) . I know from personal experience that it is very important to never make adjustments without the grinder grinding, I have fixed several broken adjustment rings and burr holders. All that said, I am giving this thing 5 stars despite this flaw, as it is very well built, works good and I would recommend it. NOTE: I tried emptying the hopper in order to adjust the grind, and yes it does shut off when empty, but it does run long enough to clear out the beans in the burrs so it is safe enough to adjust this way.

DELIVERY I had an issue with Amazon on the initial delivery status they adjusted to come close to respecting delivery date. If anyone at Amazon is reading this ... please do your best to respect delivery dates.... it is a real bummer when you are expecting an item and it does not arrive. THE MACHINE. WOW. Great quality and great functions QUALITY design and technology BRAVO SAECO. Very happy with this purchase and price was very competitive.

Le goût est extraordinaire ! J’utilise les mêmes grains de café qu’avec une ancienne machine et le goût est totalement différent!

Have had issues with it since the start, leaking water issues (the water doesn't seem to flow properly into the brew group), hard to adjust the coffee strength and length to make a long espresso and now it has completely stopped working and I am just a couple of months outside the Amazon return/exchange policy. I am very disappointed as I did a lot of research prior to this purchase. I will need to get it repaired now at my local Saeco/Phillips distributor but these repairs are very costly and considering the price of this product, did not expect to have to take it and get it repaired this soon following purchase. My former Saeco automatic machine lasted 10+ years without every breaking down. Clearly the manufacturing quality has decreased. Not pleased with this producut nor Amazon's policy of not being able to do anything about it and deferring to the manufacturer.

Overall a good product but takes a bit of time getting used to. We bought this machine three months ago after a lot of research online. It has a very nice minimalistic-ish design, relatively small footprint which makes it great for smaller kitchens. I like that there is a carafe instead of the frother because carafe is easier to clean and is hands-free when it comes to frothing (I mean, why but an expensive super automatic machine and have to do manual labour with milk still,right?). All instructions seem very easy to follow and menu is easy to navigate. Coffee tastes good so far, no plastic taste or anything. Cleaning is easy, brew group removes in one move. Flaws: - Carafe is rectangle and some cups stand to the side, as left side of the cup is super close to it. Would have been nice to design an indent in the carafe so that cups fit more naturally. - I noticed small regular water leak under the machine and some ground coffee accumulation under it. No big deal but can stain the surface it is on if not cleaned regularly. - Water tank is made out of clear plastic that seems very fragile, I am always afraid the handle will break if I carry a full tank of water. - You absolutely need to buy not only filters but also the descaling solution as the filter replacement is only possible along with descaling process. Thankfully there are a lot of non-Philips descaling solutions that are cheaper than original. - Menu does not have a feature to clean carafe milk line independently. Carafe flush only available within 10 seconds after using milk frother and then you have to wait till next brew/milk frother use to clean the line. This is a major flaw in my opinion, as milk can go sour and the line can clog easily if you do not clean it immediately. - To empty the coffee grounds container you have to remove the tray. Would have been a much better design to allow this from the same side door where you access brewing group because tray is always full of water and prone to spillage. I only point out these flaws because they are annoying and I am surprised engineers did not catch them or decided to sacrifice in favour of design. Otherwise we love this machine, especially since we like our coffee ground fresh from beans and invested into the machine to free ourselves from manually brewing coffee in Bialetti perculator or stovetop turkish coffee brewer. Oh, and don't be cheap if you buy this machine. Invest in good coffee! You would not add coke to an expensive rum now, would you? Same here.