Breville Bambino Plus BES500BTR (Black Truffle)

I really liked the Bambino Plus while it was working. Despite maintaining the machine meticulously, it began developing intermittent issues around the 12‑month mark. By the time it reached two years old, part of the frothing system had failed completely. This was my first Breville after several De’Longhi machines, and unfortunately it hasn’t lived… Read more

up to the same standard of reliability. I’ll be trying another brand next, as you simply shouldn’t encounter major faults with an appliance at this price point after only two years of use.

OK but significant drawbacks and best bought on sale – The machine works OK. To get decent coffee, I found that the included portafilter and tamper were inadequate. The tamper is very lightweight, and getting an even tamp is almost impossible. The portafilter has a bunch of plastic in the bottom of it, and the breville baskets don't extract that well. With a better portafilter (eg Pesado 54mm) and… Read more

basket and a decent tamper along with some scales, the espresso turns out much better and more consistent. But that is going to set you back another $100 - $150, bear in my mind. If you are grinding, a dosing ring and a WDT device is also necessary in my opinion, adding to the cost.

The milk frother works well for me with the automatic setting, but isn't quite up to doing latte art.

My signficant complaints: 1. The group head cleaning cycle which can't be skipped. As others have pointed out, this is very irritating as it inevitably interrupts your coffee process. Just a really poor design decision and completely unnecessary.

2. Water leaking. After a few months I started to get water leaking out of the connection between the water tank and the base of the machine. Research online indicates this is a known problem. It can be overcome by never removing the tank and filling it in place with a jug, but it is still a defect.

3. Customer support. When I contacted Breville about the water leaking, they asked for more details and then ignored me. This is well within the warranty period. They wasted my time and failed to resolve the issue. This is unacceptable behaviour for a company with >$1billion dollars in revenue and a thousand employees.

So the machine is OK value, but I would only buy it on a significant sale due to the poor accessories and water leak issue. Do not expect any customer service, and be prepared to troubleshoot your own problems.

Makes the best coffee and makes it hot – To say I’m impressed is an understatement. This compact little machine makes brilliant coffee. It also makes HOT coffee not lukewarm. It heats up and is ready to go in 3 seconds. I really can’t fault it. I feel like the quality of coffee pods has gone off lately, and the pod machines don’t make piping hot coffee. The Bambino Plus does. It’s… Read more

quick, easy, tastes great and is piping hot. It is also easy to clean. Of course there’s a bit more cleaning involved than with a pod machine, but the extra effort required is well worth it. You will get a piping hot satisfying coffee with this amazing little machine.

Disappointing – We purchased this in August 2022 to replace a Sunbeam cafe series machine we’d had for about 8 years. The milk frothing has been very variable & unsatisfactory and we’ve found it regularly clogs up and has an error message on the steam wand, though at present that seems to be ok. I think it may be the 4 fine hole design in the steam wand… Read more

blocking more readily? It clogs a lot more often than our old machine did. We’ve found that the milk temperature varies a lot irrespective of what automatic setting is used, what milk volume is in the jug or volume setting is chosen, etc - I think the automatic wand overheats the milk quite frequently and then that contributes to the fine holes clogging. We’ve overcome this by manually turning the milk frother off, which defeats the purpose of an automatic setting!

It has proven very hard to get the milk wand to consistently steam and produce an ok standard of frothing - it definitely is nothing like a cafe quality from our machine, despite us trying quite a few combos of the settings. Occasionally it gets close, but that’s a bit like finding the needle in the haystack. I’ve found the automatic wand hasn’t lived up to its promise at all.

Generally the espresso machine has worked well. Today it wouldn’t work at all - we have done all the correct maintenance, perhaps it is just blocked internally, as it was trying to pump, but no water or coffee would come out at all. I guess we will find out as it’s now been sent off to service under warranty.

I took it to our place of purchase and now have to live without a home coffee machine for 3-4 weeks while Breville service it. This machine has been a big disappointment and seems to require a lot more upkeep than our previous machine did. Perhaps it’s the compact design, I’m not sure.

I wouldn’t recommend this model for purchase. I’m very disgruntled to be without a coffee machine for 3-4 weeks too. I’d strongly encourage anyone considering purchasing a Breville or coffee machine in general to ask the retailer a lot about refunds and returns policies and check this carefully prior to purchase, as 3-4 weeks without your coffee machine is a big deal, especially when it’s only 6 months old. I guess this is what an ‘extended warranty’ upsell covers :-(

Update - I also tried the ‘mediation’ option offered by Product Review, but never received any sort of response from Breville

Breville Overlord demands 10 mins cleaning before you can continue! – Now owned for 2 years, review updated 19/11/2024. For 2 years I have used it at least 4 times per week with no faults or failures so rating increased from 1 to 2 stars. This machine would get 4 stars except for the Overlord factor. Without warning and no bypass or defer function The Breville Overlord insists on a cleaning cycle. The ransom to be… Read more

able to finish making coffee is a clean cycle of 12 minutes before you can proceed. It does not care that I just extracted the expresso and I JUST WANT TO FROTH THE MILK to complete the coffee. [Content Removed] Breville!

HOW STUPID TO AUTOMATICALLY LOCK THE MACHINE HALFWAY THROUGH MAKING COFFEE when it just needs a clean. The genius that designed this is an idiot!

There is also a forced DESCALE, but you can defer that so you can complete making coffee and do the descale later.

CONCLUSION: an otherwise compact and easy to use machine is ruined by a Dictatorship. Auto milk froth works OK but at lowest setting makes the milk too hot for my liking, so I do it manually. Being able to fine tune the extraction time is handy to adjust flavour.

The included tamper is not good. Light weight and uncomfortable. I purchased a spring loaded one with a fat wooden handle that is comfortable and much better to use. Also got a dosing ring which is a must if you grind your own beans.

ATTENTION BREVILLE USER GUIDE AUTHORS You need to have a quick reference list of what all the light patterns mean so that the user can quickly identify the issue without the need to waste time trawling through the entire user guide or searching for it on the internet.

Machine works well but when machine unexpectedly stops working and lights are flashing the user guide is USELESS!! I wrote my own cheat sheet for what the lights means so the next time I am caffeine deprived I can quickly and easily refer to my list of light meanings.

So disappointed with this machine – After reading all the reviews that said this was easy to use all I want to do is throw it in the bin..so disappointed. Only 30mls coffee comes out of double shot. I read how to change it 2 60mls and it worked once then back to 30 mls. Now today I turned it on and the 2 coffee settings keep flashing. The temp of the milk even though set on the lowest temp came out at 90c. What a waste of $600. Show details

Great machine, homemade coffee that beats the local cafe – We got the machine at a discounted price thanks to a corporate partnership program with the vendor. The machine is easy to use and I love that it has 3 programmed levels of milk texture to choose from and also 3 temp settings for the milk - it makes it easy to automatically froth the milk to my preferred texture and temperature without trying to… Read more

get it to the right texture and temp manually. The extraction of the coffee is also good. The only slight problem is that the drip tray is small and fills up quickly, especially as the steam wand has the auto clean functionality after each cup. But it's a minor inconvenience and overall we really do love this machine.