Saeco Minuto

Sorry l bought it! – Coffee great but thats all. The machine has had so many problems used it occasionally then l retired used it more often & as soon as the warranty was up it started!! Show details

Shocking – I bought this machine via TVSN to replace my Delonghi approximately 3 years ago. I should have returned it, or possibly just thrown it away. It leaks water into the basin area that requires emptying every day otherwise i end up with a flooded bench top. Coffee grinds regularly miss the bin causing a very messy machine cabin. The coffee itself… Read more

is bitter and yes...i have tried different coffee beans.

I eventually stored it in the garage and converted to a cafitaly pod machine which produced beautiful coffee but the cost has become quite high so two weeks ago i pulled out the Saecco Minuto from the garage.....cleaned, descaled, filled it with fresh coffee beans.......and voila, the memories came flooding back.

Bitter coffee, water leaks and messy cabin from the grinds.

Urghh.....time to toss it and never again purchase anothe Saecco

Cheers

Judy

Great fully automatic coffee machine – Very reliable, good quality, easy to use and easy to clean coffee maker. We use this about 20 times daily to make either espressos or tegular coffee and it does a great job of grinding and making the coffee itself. Good size coffee bean feeder, it only cleans filling the hopper and emptying the grounds around twice a week. Makes cafe quality coffee at a relatively affordable price for the quality. Recommended.  Show details ·  1

Tastes BITTER???? – Easy to use. Purchased only yesterday & not happy! I used the coffee beans that I'm used to and using them with this machine, well for some reason makes a bitter coffee. I want to know why? I was going to purchase a Brevile. I wish I did Not happy  Show details

descale disaster – Daily clean is easy but the descale takes 2 hours to perform. This is an absolute waste of your time every month or so. Needless to say the unit loses so much water into the overflow tray you are forever stopping to empty. Engineering here is quite poora and Saeco could have done better  Show details

Ok, not amazing – We use it daily, it is far from perfect but fairly solid. The coffee grind is pretty solid and the controls are fairly solid as well. The cleaning of the device is a bit tedious and the water tank is pretty quick to empty (that might be that we are using it too much - maybe). I don't know if after this I would buy another Saeco after this machine,… Read more

looked at one of the newer evo models but I am feeling for the money I might be better with another brand.

We Love This Machine!!! – This machine has performed as designed the moment we pulled it out of the box. Read instructions front to back. Put them in a handy location for future reference and haven't had a problem. Have used several different beans in machine, adjust settings to suit taste and it does it's job. Perfectly. I dump trip tray about four times a week and puck… Read more ·  1

bin when full. Wash mechanism with hot water and wipe with paper towel and put back in service. Haven't lubed it since purchase. Machine is awesome!! We make about 6 to 8 cups per day.

February 6th 2017 Update: 6 months later.....still working perfectly.

I've just read other people reviews regarding this machine. I can only speaks from our experience. We haven't had any problems with this model. We use an assortment of beans. Nabob,Starbucks,Tim Hortons, McDonalds you name it,we've probably tried it. This is my second review. The machine is now over six months old.we have descaled it 3 times now. I am now considering lubing the mechanism for the first time but every thing seems to be moving freely. All these other problems that people are experiencing with this machine seems to be from stupid people. Yes I said stupid. Like the one were he can't figure out why the water is dribbling out. (maybe has to do with the water hardness in his area) On and on it goes these are probably the same kind of people who complain to the hotel front desk that there pillows were too hard and they want a refund. I will post again in approx. 3 months about this machines performance. I will tell it like it is. If it's working bad or good, you will get an honest opinion. As of now this machine is working as designed. Perfectly.

Mark W.

August 7th 2017 Update: One year strong

We bought this machine just shy of a year now. We make on average 4 cups a day. Each serving uses approximately 15 grams of coffee. We pay $16/kg. for coffee in Canada. An Americano cost $3.25 at the local coffee shop, plus tip if you want. This machine makes the coffee exactly the way we want it, without leaving the house. The compact design of this machine even allows us to take it on holidays when we go to the Cottage. We have been following the manufactures maintenance instruction and haven't had an issue with this machine yet. It works....well...like a machine. I know eventually it will need service, cause like any mechanical device they just do. In the mean time we like showing the simplicity of its use to our visiting house guests. If you can invest $1,300 for this appliance it is well worth it! As mentioned above it has a proven pay back period. Don't get sucked into those pod type of machines. We had one before this Saeco. The pods cost .65cents each in Canada. Sorry to get hung up on serving costs but, ultimately that's what it comes down to plus you have the ability to serve any kinda of bean in the world. Thank-you. Mark

Let down! – Had the machine for 3 years and it's been in twice for repairs to when machine was under warranty. Now it's out of warranty and coffee has stopped coming out of 2 x spouts. Called Saeco to enquire and they want to charge me £158 pounds for a service which i find ridiculous considering that I paid £350 to buy machine!!! (that's almost 50%… Read more

of purchase price for a service!!)

They also say the repair / service time will be 3 weeks which I find crazy!

Decided that I'm going to bin the machine and change brands.

Too Unreliable - Not Recommended – I was actually quite pleased with the coffee from this machine, the coffee was stronger and better than that from our Delonghi Automatic machines - though not quite as good as from our pod machines (Aldi, Nespresso, MAP and Espressotaria). The main problem with the machine was that after purchasing it in July 2104, I had to get the solenoid… Read more

fixed under warranty just 4 months later, as the machine could only make hot water and no coffee.

And yesterday, just two years and four months later, the same thing seems to have happened. Plenty of hot water comes out the water spout when that is selected, but steam comes out the side of the machine and no coffee comes out.

So the machine is out of warranty by four months, and I am faced with a bill of $125 plus parts, and parts will cost anywhere from $50 to $80, on a machine that originally only cost me $479 (though I did see it at up to $600 at the time).

No point sending good money after bad - this machine will go into our rubbish bin at the next collection.

Regards.

The worst machine that I have ever bought – The machine is very noisy & it leaves a mess of unused grounded coffee beans all under the unit i have now put on a tray. It no longer asked to cleaned that used to take hours to clean. The grinder often stops working. It leaks water out the side of the coffee jets & it sounds like the water pump is struggling I think that it needs a visit to the tip.  Show details

Piece of Rubbish – We sent our back because the coffee tasted too hot and burnt. The machine asked to be cleaned fortnightly and the cleaning process took too long. After it was returned we were told there was nothing wrong with the machine. The coffee tasted better and the machine also stopped asking to be cleaned. After a year, it started dribbling from the… Read more

left hand jet. I thought a clean might help. It just kept cleaning for 3 hours. It is going in the bin this time. Piece of junk. It also makes a big mess on the bench, particularly under the machine.

OK Now – The Cal-Clean eventually began to work well with our Minuto. Since the machine has worked really well and we are very happy with it. It makes a good cup of coffee dispensing about 8-10 cps per day for our team. It extracts a good amount if coffee from the grinds and the machine is easily cleaned.. I would recommend one of these machines now. We did not understand why we had this initial glitch with the cal-clean. Bill  Show details ·  1

No power – I have had this machine two weeks. In the second week it turned itself off ( no power). Today, after making two cups of coffee,I went to make a third and in the middle of getting ready, it powered off completely . I unplugged it and plugged it back in. I went to take it a part to put it all back together again and the brew group is stuck and won't come out. It will be going back to Harvey Norman tomorrow.  Show details

Nice design, but cheap materials – Easy to set up, easy to use. Nice hot coffee. Daily and weekly cleaning is no drama. Brew group can be easily removed for washing. Not quite as good as the jura full auto at work, but a fraction of the price. Not sure it will last more than a year or two, but we will see.  Show reply

Dreadful. Just does not work – Have two machines. Both stopped working and have been sent for repairs only to fail again. What is more disappointing is the reluctance to replace the machine even though they are both still under warranty. Won't be purchasing saeco products again. products are unreliable and company not willing to acknowledge the faults

Bitter coffee every time totally disappointed – Had the coffee machine and tried using it at the office for 6 months and gave up. We changed settings and tried every combination, read articles on the mix/brew, used expensive coffee beans - still did not have one decent coffee from this machine. We had a saeco coffee machine representative from harvey norman check the machine for us. Its… Read more

decided we will never buy Saeco again over our lifetime, and we'll just stick with using Delonghi since their coffee brew is better to our taste and we get delicious coffee automatically more importantly reliably every time. What can I say other than that we got no support from Saeco or Harvey Norman to exchange it after the first month of complaining, it seems we lost and wasted our money.

Very Unreliable – Once again this machine has failed. Leaking and blowing fuses. Has been sent away twice now and warranty runs out in 5 months so if it breaks down again I am $750 down the drain. Call Phillips to get a call centre. Cannot understand what they say to fix it. The last time the brew head was jammed. The coffee grinds tray is always overflowing with wet grinds. Kristin

A really good coffee maker, spoiled by screaming milk steamer – I have had this machine for about a year now and, basically, it is a very good, versatile, low cost appliance. I have had no operating problems with it and I use it four or five times every day. One aspect I really dislike about it is the horrendous squealing scream made by the 'cappuccinatore' milk frothing attachment. It makes fine frothed… Read more ·  1

milk, most importantly making it at the right temperature, too, but the noise it makes in the process would almost shatter glass.

I usually warn people that I'm about to run the steamer so that they can all depart to another room.

My deafness helps me with this problem because, while I find it pretty bad, I can put up with it when others can't.

It is sure to make my deafness even worse...

Is there a solution to this problem? Does Saeco have an alternative attachment?

I sure would like to have a solution to this problem!

Apart from this fault, I think the machine is excellent value and I would definitely buy another unit when this one ends its busy days.

It makes excellent coffee to all tastes (We use ALDI Dark Roast, amazing value @$11 /Kg and outstanding flavour) and the machine is easy to maintain if you read the read the confusing, weirdly constructed and incomplete operating manual. I went on line to find additional information on maintenance.

Coffee ground spilled out – Its great machine i have been using this brand for more than 10 years, and very happy and enjoying with the great tasting coffee output. However this machine started spiling massive amounts of dry ground coffee inside after one year of use. i have been cleaning it as per maintenance recommendation.  Show 2 replies

Avoid This Machine – after a couple of weeks, the machine started spiling massive amounts of dry ground coffee inside, so when opened for the weekly cleaning (I only make 2-3 cups per day) there is ground coffee all over the place. A messy and wasteful problem. Phillips will not warranty it without the original receipt and it was bought from a store six months ago. So a bad machine with bad warranty support.

poor brew do not buy – I loved Saeco coffee machines until we bought the Minuto. Firstly the water reservoirs handle breaks 2 months in. Currently when using the ground coffee option the brewer stops spits out the grounds but no coffee. Now it leaks water and makes weak coffee if any. I am so disappointed in this product and had I known about all these issues would never had outlayed the expense on it.

So disappointed – After previously having a Saeco machine last us 5 years, we were brand loyal and purchased a Minuto in December 2014. What a mistake! Firstly, despite setting it to the coolest temp, the automatic milk frother would make the coffee far too hot it would burn your mouth. Then, only after 2 months the automatic milk frother stopped working… Read more

altogether, so we used it manually (and made better coffee that way!)

Now, only 8 months in, it's leaking water, not drawing coffee through and the LCD display has condensation behind the glass. Plus there is always dry grounds surrounding the brew group, despite following the cleaning & maintenance guidelines.

It's off to the repairer now as still under warranty, but can honestly say Saeco has completely lost me with this terrible machine! A big waste of hard earned money, and now a huge inconvenience to travel to a repairer. The telephone customer service was most unhelpful and accusatory!

We have wasted our money – They makes good coffee, but the bypass works once in a while so to have my decaf I have to remove the coffee completely. After not even 2 months it broke. It does not ground the coffee anymore. Apparently, the information that was given to us is we need to use special coffee. Knowing this information this machine wouldn't be our choice We just want our money back

Best coffe yet – I love my Saeco Minuto. It makes an excellent coffee every time with no fuss. Cleaning is a drag but not too bad. We went away and took the machine with us and woke to great coffee every day. Highly recommend it for lovers of coffee, Much cheaper than getting a coffee from a shop  Show reply

Rubbish – Got this machine and its is utter rubbish. Makes a horrible coffee. The coffee is so hot I swear it is made from the River Styx. I can say I have drank a lot of coffee, in a lot of places, and coffee should not be hotter than 60 degrees.

Very Dissapointed – I have had this machine 14 months,I use it twice a day and can say I have not had a decent coffee out of it yet! I have tried different settings, beans and ground coffee without benefit. I now see I am not on my own as my grinder has stopped working. I have contacted the help line and have no option than to return it to the place of purchase which… Read more

is 3 hours away! Very inconvenient and would still cost me dearly to send with a courier. I would definitely not recommend to anyone to buy. Over priced machine thats makes coffee no different to a $10 plunger!

Not worth it – I had to have this machine repaired when the water sensor died. This machine is less than 6 months old and now after having it back from the repairer for less than a week, the grinder has died. Won't grind the coffee and just water comes out. Now I have to take it back to the shop again! I will be asking for a replacement, as this is not what I would expect from an expensive machine. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Great coffee - Poor stamina – I was very happy with this machine, did all the maintenance, but after 2 months the grinder stopped grinding, just hot water coming out. No error message! Took it back to the shop! Replaced it with the same model, again great coffee, but after 2 months it stopped grinding again (exactly the same thing) so I think I must have missed something here.… Read more

so call saeco help desk - no joy - referred onto an approved repairer - Who did not instil great confidence - so it's back to the manual I think!!

OK, but there is more commitment here – Better in some respects than an Aldi machine but more things to take into consideration. It's not just set it and go, more involved. You'll need to service this machine and because it is so electronically controlled, IF it says something is wrong, it's a bit hard to change the machine's mind, so back to the instruction booklet - more than once. I… Read more

can't really get a great crema, is it me, the coffee or machine, I don't know. I'll spend more time with it and think if I love it or just like it.

This is one awesome machine..........so far – We bought this machine after our existing Electrolux ELM5250S found its way to the garbage bin. We needed a machine that wasn't too space hungry as we do not have a lot of bench space. We were at the end of our love affair with Pod machines and wanted more choice with the coffee that we drank and wanted a machine that used beans. Set up of the… Read more ·  14

machine is easy and straightforward. The set up once the machine is turned on is easy and you are ready to brew your first coffee in no time. The manual says that it takes between 10-20 cups for the machine to settle and learn how you like your coffee. Its sounds a bit silly at first but it actually happens, so my advice would be to buy some cheap coffee and battle through these first 20 cups, then pile in the quality beans. The unit is very quick to warm up. Be warned though, when you turn the machine on it performs a quick rinse cycle after the water has been heated so always have a cup or container sitting under the spout. You can adjust the coarseness of the grind as well as the strength (the amount of beans used) by the push of a button. The manual steam function is quick to get up to temp and pressure and froths milk very fast, but you have no control over the amount of froth created which can be annoying. The steam function is started by pushing the steam button but it is stopped by pushing the Espresso button and it doesn't stop instantly which can lead to an overflow of hot milk if you aren't watching. Again there is a rinse cycle performed when you turn the machine off so be ready for that. The instruction manual is disappointing and could be written a lot better and it leaves a few things out. It doesn't tell you that if you push the Espresso button twice, the machine will brew a double shot. The bean hopper is a decent size and lets you store a large quantity of beans which is great and means that you aren't forever refilling it. You will need to perform a regular weekly clean which isn't too tedious as well as a monthly descale. Saeco say that you must use their descaling liquid to keep the warranty valid, I haven't purchased any of their descaling liquid so I'm hoping it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I will submit an updated review in about a month and hopefully the machine is still going strong. So far its hats off the Saeco for this awesome little machine.

Early thoughts on machine – Just set it up today and after a bit of tweaking with the grind setting and coffee strength I almost have it right. It is very easy to use and clean. The only thing I don't like is the height that the adjustable coffee spout can or can't be adjusted to. It cannot be placed low enough for espresso and even on the lowest heights the coffee… Read more ·  3

splashes into the cup making the crema bubbly and frothy rather than creamy. I have lifted the cup higher to the spout and it comes out perfect. Perhaps I need some cups that are less flat and more V shaped so the coffee hits the sides rather than land flat in a wide cup and splash.

If there is a longer spout that could replace this one would be ideal....

Like I said only a small problem

Compact and cheap. Coffee result is OK – I purchased this machine to replace a cheapie Ningbo Merrol machine purchased off eBay acouple of years ago, which recently died. It has taken a bit of fiddling with settings to get it to make a decent coffee, but I'm nearly there (still not as good as the Ningbo yet though.) There are a few niggles with this machine however. The bean hopper… Read more ·  2

can be a bit fiddly to fill and it's easy to spill beans. The pre-ground coffee dose compartment is hard to clean. The dregs bin is integrated with the drip tray and so both must be removed together even when just emptying the dregs bin. The drip tray is big and cumbersome to wash in the sink. The control buttons are really quite hard to press, which may be an issue for some people.

Another annoyance is the auto power off feature - it shuts off too soon, and when it does it does another rinse/priming cycle which can be annoying if you've forgotten to leave a cup under the spout. It does a rinse / prime when starting up, so doing another one when shutting down seems pretty pointless.

But there are also good points: the machine is compact and fits easily on a kitchen bench. It's reasonably quiet. It warms up quickly. It has a clear display and the general design is pleasant. You can double press the brew button to make two consecutive cups. And it makes pretty good coffee which comes out hot.

Overall, for the price, I would recommend this coffee maker, but just be prepared to make adjustments to the factory settings.

(In case anyone is wondering, there are three main settings that can be changed that will affect the taste of the coffee: The "length", ie how long the water is pumped through the coffee ground; the "aroma", ie how long it grinds for; and the coarsness of the grind. Getting these three variables just right can be a bit of a challenge, but perseverance should pay off.) Speed. Quietness. Compactness. Need to mess about with settings to get decent coffee.

So far so good. Happy with product – Purchased from good guys for $549 which was a lot cheaper than anywhere else that I could find at the time. It made horrible tasting burnt coffee for the first 15 to 20 espresso coffees but then started to taste good after that. It did state in the manual that this does occur. The manual that comes with the machine is vague in areas, such as not… Read more

showing that it has a double strength feature, which I found out how to do on you tube by pressing the espresso button twice. Which is good as I like a strong cuppicuno in the morning.

It is easy to use and does make a nice cuppicuno. When you find the right tasting coffee you can save your preference. The steam wand was easy to use and I can heat up the milk to the temperature that I like, but have to admit doesn't make quite a smooth creamy milk froth like my old sunbeam cafe series machine did, but hopefully with practice I can get it close.

It turns itself off after a certain time period and will self clean before shutting down and also cleans itself when you turn the machine off. The brew head can be adjusted for small cups to mugs. A great feature is the fact that you can pour already ground beans in the top of the machine without removing the whole beans. This was handy recently when a friend wanted a decaffeinated coffee and I just used a ground coffee bean.

To keep the 2 year warranty valid you have to properly maintain the machine with Saeco de scaling solution which the machine tells you when to do it and that is also fully automatic.

The grind size and strength of coffee can be adjusted which is a great feature. The used ground coffee bin and drip tray are huge. The machine lets you know when the bin needs emptying and beans and water require filling.

Overall Iam happy with this machine. Good automatic coffee machine for a reasonable price. Price and so many features Must use Saeco descaling solution.