I bought two Dolce Gusto machines at Christmas the Genio to keep at home, and the more expensive (at the time) Circolo to take to work. Well, after using them both I returned Circolo and bought another Genio. They both make great drinks, so why did I return the more expensive model for a second one of the cheaper model? One simple reason: automation. With this unit you need to babysit your drink and you need to guess how much water to put in from each capsule, and unless you have a cup with markings on the inside of it then your drinks are never going to turn out exactly the same. With the Genio you simply set it to the level indicated on each capsule (or to the level that you desire), then push the button and it automatically uses the correct amount of water. No babysitting, no guesswork, and every drink will turn out exactly the same as the last. I have a real espresso machine at home for when I have the time to sit and make a drink hands-on, but when I want something quick and hassle-free I'll be using the Genio instead.
That being said, this does still make great drinks if you don't mind standing there there while your drink is made and using a cup with measurement marks on it to make sure the drink is made with the right amount of water. But in my opinion it's certainly not worth the extra money for the "cool design" factor when it lacks a major feature which its less expensive sibling has.
10/2/2012 UPDATE: It looks like the Genio is now more expensive than this Circolo model, and I'm betting that's because they sell a lot more of those so they have raised the price on it and lowered the price on this one. When I bought them the Circolo was about 50 dollars more, but now the Genio looks like it's 20 dollars more and even with that in mind I would still recommend the Genio.
This is THE machine.I was looking for a machine that would stop me from going to Starbucks every day and spending 3.88 for my grande lattes. This machine does it.The coffee comes out delicious, a tiny bit of sweetness in the milk capsule (really just a tiny bit) makes it a perfect,tasty drink. The espresso is no joke. It has the perfect foam on the top, just like from SB. It is also very strong.Love it. The 15 bar pressure is almost what professional coffee machines use. It works fast, from the moment I press the power button it takes me 30 seconds to have a finished drink, no complicated clean up after either. It is very stylish! I had several people come to my house and look at it and ask me what "it" was...The cappuccino has only 80 calories so it saves you not only money but also calories. A SB latte has a lot more calories than that.
Strongly recommend.
Buy DeLonghi Nescafe Dolce Gusto Circolo Coffeemaker Now
We bought this model DeLonghi single-serve coffeemaker (DeLonghi Nescafe Dolce Gusto Circolo Coffeemaker, Black) based solely on it's Consumer Reports review. We've only had it a couple of weeks, but so far we are quite happy with it. We fix coffee the old-fashioned way when we get up in the morning, but almost never had an afternoon cup of coffee because we never wanted more than a single cup.
Our experience so far is the coffee is very good. The temp is consistent, and the machine is fast. My only disappointment is it isn't more automatic. It dispenses the water for as long or short of a time as you want. I assume CR must have looked at this flexibility as a benefit. The good news is you get the feel for how strong or weak to make your coffee fairly quickly, the down side is you can't leave it unattended.
We have friends with a Tassimo style single-server coffeemaker, and we recently spent a weekend with them. This was our first hands-on experience with a single-serve coffeemaker. We enjoyed the convenience and variety of beverage options. Their Tassimo was automatic too; push the botton and walk away. That was a nice feature, but we decided to go with the CR recommendation. None of the Tassimo compatible coffeemakers were recommended, and that is why we subscribe to the CR reviews.
Read Best Reviews of DeLonghi Nescafe Dolce Gusto Circolo Coffeemaker Here
I bought this model because of the price.. It had been returned gently used... It is the perfect match for my kitchen.. The rounded shape fits nicely in smaller places.The water container is in the back and serves several cups of coffee. It almost holds a 1/2 gal. of water. The most difficult part of this machine is guessing the correct amount of fluid to run through the coffee pod. Using smaller cups and reading the directions on each box ( each flavor brews differently) finally helped me find the right strength. I only wish these coffee pods were as easily available as the "k cups".. So far I have found the best prices and best selection available is on the manufacturers website.
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I recently bought the Krups version of this machine. I live in the States and had to buy it from Canada to get the platinum finish. For whatever reason, Nestle stopped using Krups as the OEM in the States and moved it to DeLonghi. I doubt there is any difference between the quality of the machines from the two OEMs; DeLonghi's version only comes in black & white.
My wife and I had been using a drip machine for the last 10 years so we were anxious to move up the stack. I had been looking for awhile at some of the fully automatic machines but the price and "quality" complaints kept me away.
What I like about this capsule machine is it is easy to use, clean and there are about 8-10 different types of coffees available for it. The coffee is definitely better than my drip machine and the manual aspect of this machine allows you to mix blends to control the strengths and flavors.
What I don't like about the machine:
the capsules are proprietary so price competition will be limited. Some of the coffees take 2 capsules so the cost per drink is probably 10x that of our drip machine. Subtracting the costs from the convenience and variety of drinks I still the machine is worth a switch to from a standard drip machine.
There is no temperature control and I wish the coffee was a bit hotter. You can always preheat your cup and fit in a tall thermo-style cup to retain the temperature but still wish I had more control of the temp.
In restropect, I wouldn't have paid more money to buy the Krups version from Canada but still don't know what other machine I would buy in its stead.
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This coffee maker has some really smart features. It's a very heavy, solid unit. The top panel is vented so as the coffee is brewing, it can vent itself and the lid stays flat. It makes a great cup of coffee. I use one scoop per cup and it seems to be a good strength. I have to admit, I'm not very good at using the expresso maker. The steamer is pretty easy to operate but I still need to practice with making latte's and expresso. I don't know how much water and expresso coffee to use to make good cup yet. I was concerned with the seller in that my instructions weren't inside the box. I called and they mailed them out very quickly but I wondered why they were taken out in the first place. Why would you open a brand new box and remove anything? Why open the box and remove the instructions? That was strange. I'm hoping it was really new and not refurbished.
