Pro: Love the machine and the coffee. The milk attachment works well and is easy to clean.
Con: Every month, the machine indicates we need to descale and states if we don't use the Philips descaler, it will void the warranty. We probably average 100 cups of coffee per month but we only use filtered water, so every month seems excessive. I've been buying the Philips descaler online @ $10 each, which sems like just another way that Philips creates recurring revenue. IMO, it's expensive and inconvenient having to descale each month.
Wish it had a timer to automatically turn on each morning.

It's fine. Drinks are small, 9oz is actually 7oz, but you can compensate using "2x" to double it. Profiles aren't worth it because it doesn't save "2x" so you have to hit buttons just as many times (profile, profile, drink, 2x vs. drink, up, up, 2x). Wish they had actual 12oz or 16oz, but max is 9, so you'd have to make multiple drinks. Really like the design generally, ease of use, and ease of cleaning.

So it makes great coffee but it took awhile because the bean filter thing to allow the beans through was to tight and wouldn’t allow the beans through so we had to loosen it. Also it keeps cancelling our drinks on us every now and again. For this much money I wish it didn’t have so many issues so far. Hopefully we have fixed it and won’t have to deal with those issues anymore.

I have had the unit for 5 months now and I can honestly say this is best coffee maker experience I have ever had, after being disappointed in 8 different Keurig models I decided to pay a little extra and give this unit a try. I should probably give this 5 stars but there is only one thing I wish it did and that pertains to the water level and size of container. container size seems to be too small as I feel i'm constantly filling it (might be because the coffee is so darn good! LOL). It would also be nice if it anticipated the water level when making a cup as it doesn't finish the cup and says "Add Water" and if you don't do it in a certain time frame it will not continue the brew but just put a full cup on top of that one.
item seems very well built and I hope it lasts for the price I paid.

All in all I highly recommend this unit as I have tried all of the brews myself and and for guests and have gotten nothing but compliments. the brews easy to make and are "fantastic".

Overall I have been happy with the product since I purchased it. I have dialed in my profile of drink types and look forward to my morning routine. Here are a few notes I have.

PROS
Size: Size is acceptable considering what it does and it sits nicely on the counter
Drink Selection: For my needs the selection and options are great and it does what I need it to do
Frothing: It comes with the attachment to froth milk which is nice, works well
Speed: Able to get up to temp and have drink ready in a relatively short time for my needs, about 3 minutes from start up to drink.
Water Filter: Very nice to have this option, however, not sure how it would impact the coffee.

Not going to rate the coffee itself as that is subjective and can be related to the type of grounds or beans you use. I have had no issue with flavoring for my taste.
It does put out some noise but nothing that is too much and I don't have any other machines to compare it with to know if it is too loud. But you will hear it in an apartment of small house.
I have not done a full cleaning yet, but the weekly cleaning is normal for most coffee machines and is not a deal breaker for me.

CONS
Water Tank Part I: Would prefer to have the water tank and overall package a little wider to hold more water, the filter takes up a good amount of space and I am adding water regularly.
Water Tank Part II: I find it frustrating that the unit DOES NOT know it is low on water before it begins brewing to allow you to fill the tank first. I will actually start brewing then stop to say it needs more water. This is a bad design in my opinion. Not a deal break, just annoying.
Water Tank Part III: This unit does a rinse cycle that wastes alot of water, I understand the purpose but maybe consider an option that does not do a rinse at startup and shut down.
Water Tank Part IV: I did not want the base to collect water so I put cup under the spout before and after shutdown and STILL the thing collect water in the tray somehow and not all in the cup. You will have to empty out more than you realize

It makes good coffee and expresso. Not as good as a dedicated high pressure expresso machine. One complaint is that even with the strength and volume settings set to max it makes less coffee then a kurig. So I have to run it twice everytime to get a decent amount.
Another complaint is it uses a large amount of beans and doesn't seem to get all of potential out of the grounds. So it's rather waist full. As an experiment I took some of the grounds and put then into a reusable filter for a kurig and made a good tasting cup of coffee.
The frothing feature basically works but could do a much better job!
And forget about using preground coffee in this! The coffee comes out very weak.
Still undecided if we'll keep this. It's an expensive machine and I'm disappointed in it for the cost of it.
If your ok with small amounts of coffee It's probably good for you.
And the coffee it does make is pretty good. But it will cost you a lot in beans. I don't recommend this machine if you buy top level beans. Get a dedicated high pressure machine for that use case.
I also won't be getting ride of my kurig, it's surprisingly almost as good . Of course I have the same brand and rost beans and k cups. For this comparison, apples to apples.
You .ay find it good for you, since coffee is subjective to the individual.

I got this item Feb 2 2022.
Since then there have been several issues. First, it has a sensor problem. Whenever we made just a couple of coffee coffees, the sensor says, " empty the ground", so we pulled out the ground container to empty, there were very small tiny gained coffee, since we just at most a couple of coffee made!
Second, on top of this machine, there is a container where we supposedly put into coffee bean. Eventhough there is pretty amount of coffee, the sensor say, "add coffee and start again almost every other day, I had to get through this uncomfortable situation takes place!

So we called customer service and explained what happened. However, the customer service people are not professionally work at all! Yesterday, I called and explained this but at the end of the conversation, the call center person hung off the phone before I hung off the phone. What type of manner is that?? And whenever I tried to say something, she
tried to say something as well! If two parties keep saying, who is gonna listen?? The company need to train their employees before they put them in the position!!

It has been years of using. After I put this review, I had chance to send the machine to their office and they fixed it , sent back to me. Now I am using everymoring to make coffees which works fine. There is still issue like empty the ground after a couple of coffee made and I believe it should their eventual goal to improve. Except that part, works well.

(Aside, I have lots of experience with a Jura A9, K-cups, and Nespresso. All are still in service. I enjoy a Kirkland rebranded "House Blend" beans, a Starbucks medium roast. I drink too much coffee!)

I don't like the waste associated with K-cups and Nespresso pods (even when recycling the latter). Just IMHO, want a cup of coffee that just has compostable grounds waste, and enjoy the per-cup expense savings as well as being able to choose my beans.

Compared to the Jura, the water reservoir and waste puck/water tank are huge, and if it does run out of water, it lets you refill mid-brew and not have a low-water result. The milk clean-up is easy; all places milk flows get fully exposed with quick and easy disassembly/reassembly.

The waste water tray is a bit cumbersome and I have often spilled trying to discard (as it comes out the front and back... 1' apart): it has a pour spout in one corner that's meant to keep me from spilling, but I'm clumsy.

The puck refuse section of the waste tray always has water in it so doesn't clean easily (it's more of a spent grounds with water slurry rather than well defined dry pucks). I'm used to a little water with the pucks in the Jura, but mostly dry pucks that are easy to toss.

Being a klutz, I'm surprised I have yet to dump the cap to the milk container into the milk. Maybe its better engineered than it appears.

I don't use sticky beans by any means, but the gravity feed on the grinder needs steeper slopes: I often get into a situation where a large amount of fresh beans collect around the upper rim (so the bin looks full) yet nothing goes into the grinder. I use the same beans with the Jura and have not seen this issue.

Reading other reviews that have called support: the bean hopper not feeding the grinder and the slurry where the pucks are are indicative of too oily a bean for the machine... so I docked my review to a 4-star, as this was never an issue with the Jura.

Each brew (other than milk froth and hot water) has three settings you can alter for the profile. The first two, darkness and water, are constant for all brews, but the third is milk, if applicable, or shots, if milk is not applicable. I was wondering why the instructions didn't describe this menu or the icons in detail, then realized it changes for every brew, so it can't... you just have to figure it out.

So, for example, you can't do a cappuccino with a double espresso shot and low on milk... which is what I like... so I select a milk froth brew followed by a double shot of espresso.

Note also, that "double shots" aren't saved in the profile setting, so I need to alter that every time.

It would be nice if they just showed up to four settings per brew, or just greyed-out the milk content (or whichever option) if not applicable, and save the shot count with the setting.

It would also be nice if they didn't clamp-down the maximum water and milk content for different brews and allow more than four intermediate selections for each (i.e. the max water contents range from 2.7oz for cappuccino to 7oz for coffee... I'd prefer one max and lots of options in-between).

The Philips 4300 Espresso Machine consistently delivers a good to excellent cup of coffee (or espresso, cappuccino, Americano…) and is reliable.

I’ve used my machine daily for six months before writing this review. I wanted to have a very clear idea of its operation and reliability before I wrote anything. Here are the key things to know:

Expect to spend at least a couple of weeks playing around with the numerous settings before you get the coffee precisely to your liking. There are number of different things you can adjust using the front panel. Plus the grinder itself can be adjusted; I’ve currently got mine set at nearly the finest grind.

I haven’t quantified it, but I believe the Philips uses quite a bit more beans to make a given amount of coffee than other methods. I certainly know I’m refilling it with beams frequently. Of course, this might just be because I’m drinking more coffee due to the extreme convenience (one button operation) of the system.

The machine also uses other consumables at a fairly rapid clip – namely the AquaClean filter and descaling tables. Normally, I would write all these off as a scam, designed primarily to contribute to Philips’ bottom line. But the first time I used a coffee oil remover tablet it had an immediate positive impact on the taste of my coffee. And, the machine will nag you endlessly if you don’t change the AquaClean filter, so I think there’s no escaping that.

I clean my machine out quite thoroughly once a week, and lube it. This takes about 20 minutes. I think it’s worth the trouble.

Within a short time after purchasing it, I noticed that the two o-rings on the boiler nozzle had already deteriorated. Others reported having the same problem.

I tried to contact Philips to have these replaced, assumedly under warranty. I got absolutely nowhere with that; and I would say that might be a real weakness in purchasing from Philips. Their service appears to be nonexistent.

However, the one thing I did extract from Philips’ pathetic excuse for a service infrastructure is an “exploded view” drawing of the entire machine which lists the part number for quite literally every single part in the system. This allowed me to track down replacement parts from a third party which set me back all of a couple dollars.

I haven’t had the same problem since I replaced those original o-rings. And, now, I’m thinking that I created this problem with over-aggressive cleaning; namely I was cleaning off the lubricant from these o-rings, which possibly then caused them to rapidly wear out (because this nozzle pushes into a receptacle every time you turn the machine on, so there is frequent motion and wear on them).

When I first started using the machine, I would frequently get the “Empty grounds container” message, even though I had already emptied the container. I thought I might have a faulty sensor, but eventually, I stumbled on to the reason for this in the manual. The machine only knows that you’ve emptied this container if you remove it while the machine is switched on, and you let at least five seconds elapse before you place it back. If you empty the container with the machine off, or do it too quickly, it doesn’t know you’ve done it and won’t reset.

The water reservoir really isn’t large enough. I’m filling it back up all the time. You get used to it.

The beam hopper isn’t really big enough either. You’ll find yourself replenishing that quite frequently. And, the seal on the lid for the bean hopper rapidly becomes loose after use. You might worry that your beans will get stale because of this; but if you drink anywhere near as much coffee as my wife and I do, I can tell you they won’t be in there long enough for that.

The system is quite noisy when grinding. Live with it. It lasts all of about 30 seconds.

I also don’t believe the Philips 4300 is entirely consistent. Either in the quality/taste of the coffee it produces, or even the volume. But, there can be variations in your beans, and maybe your water. So, it’s hard to pin this stuff down. But, bottom line, I always get a good cup of coffee, and frequently a great one. Sometimes it seems like my first sip of a cup, which is full of crema, can be a bit bitter, but then the rest of the cup is fine.

Obviously, the Philips 4300 Espresso Machine is expensive (and I was lucky enough to purchase it when the price briefly dipped to $900). Maybe there’s a payback on it your alternative is Starbucks, or buying prepared coffee anywhere else. But, I’m sure it’s substantially more expensive to use than most other home brew methods, like a French press. But, the convenience factor is very high, and it’s wonderful to be able to wake up, stagger downstairs into my kitchen, press a couple buttons and be served a very good cup of coffee before I’m even entirely conscious. I have no hesitation about recommending the system, and I imagine it’s a relatively good value compared to its competitors.