This is my Delonghi Dinamica Review.
I do not own the machine. I have, however, owned the Delonghi ESAM 3300 so have some experience with this manufacturer and their products.
I spent a whole day researching others’ experiences with the Delonghi Dinamica online in order to put together this review.
Let’s get started.
Should I Buy the Delonghi Dinamica (Quick Verdict)?
I would recommend buying the Delonghi Dinamica. Both models of the machine (with and without an automatic milk frother) are excellent units. Although they are not the cheapest, they justify their cost by their excellent build quality and the fact that they make really good espresso.
Delonghi Dinamica – A Quick Overview
The Delonghi Dinamicas are a range of superautomatic espresso machines.
This means that all you need to do is fill the machine up with whole coffee beans and water.
The machines will grind the beans, dose out your ground coffee and water, and brew the coffee for you.
You just need to press a button to select the type of coffee drink that you want.
Some models of the Delonghi Dinamica have a steam wand for you to froth milk with, whereas others have an automatic frother.
The image below shows the model of Dinamica with a manual frother.
What is the Difference Between the Delonghi Dinamica Models?
If you have been on Delonghi’s website or have searched for the Delonghi Dinamica on Amazon you’ve probably noticed that there are several different models available.
I will now break down what each of these models are:
| Specification | Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W /ECAM35020B | Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35025SB | Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI | Delonghi Dinamica Plus ECAM37095TI |
| Milk frothing system | Manual (Panarello steam wand) | Manual (Panarello steam wand) | Automatic Frother with LatteCrema System | Automatic Frother with LatteCrema System |
| Black coffee presets | Espresso Lungo “Drip style” coffee Ice coffee | Espresso Lungo “Drip style” coffee Ice coffee | Espresso Lungo “Drip style” coffee Ice coffee Ristretto | Espresso Lungo “Drip style” coffee Ice coffee Coffee pot Double espresso |
| Milk coffee presets | N/A (manual milk frother) | N/A(manual milk frother) | Cappuccino Latte Latte Macchiato Cappuccino+ Flat White Cappuccino Mix Macchiato | Cappuccino Latte Latte Macchiato Cappuccino+ Flat White Cappuccino Mix Macchiato |
| Control panel type | Button operated with symbols that illuminate | Button operated with symbols that illuminate | Button operated with text display | Button operated with text display |
| Number of user profiles | None | None | 2 | 3 |
| Pump pressure | 15 bars | 15 bars | 15 bars | 19 bars |
| App compatibility | No | No | No | Yes |
| Dimensions (width x height x depth) | 9.3” x 16.9” x 13.7” | 9.3” x 16.9” x 13.7” | 9.3” x 16.9” x 13.7” | 9.3” x 17.3” x 14.2” |
| Available colors | Black White | Silver Black | Silver | Titanium |
| Buy on Amazon | Check latest price | Check latest price | Check latest price | Check latest price |
Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W / Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020B
This is the “base level” Delonghi Dinamica machine and is, appropriately, the cheapest of these three models.
The “W” and “B” at the end of the model’s name refers to the color of the machine. The machine is either available in white (“W”) or black (“B”).
The two models are identical other than their color and this should be reflected in their price tag.
The model has four available black coffees and a manual steam frother to allow you to make milk based drinks.
This would be my recommendation if you want a Delonghi Dinamica with a manual milk frother.
Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35025SB
The ECAM35025SB is slightly more expensive than the ECAM35020W/B. It seems that the only thing that justifies this additional cost is that you can get it in silver.
This is a weird one.
The ECAM35025SB appears to be exactly the same as the ECAM35020W/B except for the fact that the ECAM35025SB is available in silver.
Although some reviews say that this machine has additional functionalities over the ECAM35025SB, I found no evidence that this is actually the case.
The two machines have the exact same specs on Delonghi’s website and even share an instruction manual.
I don’t think that the ability to get this machine in silver justifies its additional cost over the ECAM35020W/B.
Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI
The ECAM35075SI has an automatic milk frother. Rather than just selecting a black coffee and frothing your own milk, the machine allows you to select milk coffee presets and will froth your milk for you depending on what drink you selected.
Delonghi have cleverly complemented the additional functionalities in the ECAM35075SI by building a text display into the machine’s user interface.
This tells you in plain English what each drink preset contains. It will also guide you in troubleshooting the machine. This makes the machine significantly easier to use than the ECAM35020W/B.
This is my recommendation if you want a machine with an automatic milk frother.
Delonghi Dinamica Plus ECAM37095TI
The Delonghi Dinamica Plus also has an automatic milk frother. The key features that it has over the ECAM35075SI is that it has:
- A couple more black coffee presets including the ability to make a pot of drip coffee.
- App compatibility so you can make a coffee from your phone
- More pressure in its brew head
The only additional feature of the Dinamica Plus that I think actually makes a tangible difference to the overall quality of the machine is the additional pressure in the brew head.
The ability to make a pot of coffee is, in my opinion, pretty pointless.
The Dinamica Plus is primarily an espresso machine and its brewing unit cannot hold enough ground coffee to make a pot of coffee of decent strength.
The app compatibility is very gimmicky and of little practical value.
When the Delonghi Dinamica Plus makes a coffee you need to have two cups, one to catch its initial rinse cycle (it does this before every coffee) and one to catch the actual coffee.
This means that you have to be standing by the machine to make a coffee, even if you program the coffee with your phone. You can’t actually make a coffee remotely through the app.
The more powerful brewing unit is a nice addition as it could help you brew espresso with finer beans than the other machines, but I still don’t think that this alone justifies its additional cost.
For the rest of this article, when I talk about the Delonghi Dinamica, I will primarily be talking about the Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W/B.
This is in part because it is the most popular of all these machines, but also because I think that it, along with the Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI, offers the best value for money of all these machines.
I am now going to evaluate the Delonghi Dinamica across five criteria. They are:
- Quality of Drinks
- Functionalities
- Ease of Use
- Design and Build Quality
- Value For Money
Quality of Drinks
The Delonghi Dinamica makes very good coffee by superautomatic machine standards. Its lungo is particularly good, and although its “drip style” is quite poor, that’s just because the machine is not designed to make that type of coffee.
Quality of Espresso
The Delonghi Dinamica makes one of the best espressos of all the similarly priced superautomatic espresso machines.
This is largely due to the fact that the machine’s brew head can hold 16 grams of ground coffee, allowing you to brew a one-ounce espresso at the recommended 2:1 water to coffee ratio.
Most superautomatic machines cannot brew with this quantity of coffee, so produce a weaker tasting espresso than the Dinamica.
Unfortunately, the Dinamica cannot brew with very finely ground coffee due in part to a lack of pressure in its brew unit, but also because it cannot manually tamp the puck of coffee evenly.
This does reduce the quality of espresso that it makes compared to a high-quality manual espresso machine. With a coarser ground, less coffee comes into direct contact with the water, so the final espresso is weaker.
This is, however, a problem that plagues all superautomatic espresso machines.
As far as superautomatic machines go, the Delonghi Dinamica makes far better espresso than most.
Quality of Lungo
The Delonghi Dinamica’s best drink is its lungo.
The Dinamica’s inability to brew with really finely ground coffee has less of a negative impact on the flavor of the lungo compared to the espresso because lungos are brewed for longer.
Therefore ground coffee has more direct contact with the water in a lungo than in espresso.
For best results, always put the Dinamica on its strongest setting when making your lungo as quite a lot of water is used in this coffee. You want to use a lot of ground coffee to compensate for this.
If you do this then you will make a really good coffee.
Quality of “Drip Style” Coffee
The Delonghi Dinamica does not make good “drip style” coffee.
Drip coffee should be brewed for at least eight minutes.
The Delonghi Dinamica brews it in less than three minutes.
This is not enough time for the coffee to extract properly into the water.
Such a short brewing time is fine for espresso because the pressure is being applied to the ground coffee and water to speed up the extraction. Drip coffee does not use this pressure when brewing.
This lack of extraction means that the “drip style” coffee that the Dinamica produces is therefore too weak and too sharp.
You’re therefore better off sticking to pour over if you want this type of coffee.
Quality of True Brew Over Ice Coffee
Delonghi describes their True Brew Over Ice Coffee as:
“By brewing at a lower temperature, allowing for preinfusion and offering the ability to customize to extra strong, The DeLonghi TrueBrew Over Ice brews smooth, full-bodied coffee that’s never watered down”
From what I understand, the True Brew Over Ice is just a “drip-style” coffee that is made with more ground coffee (extra strong), and brewed at a lower temperature and for a longer time.
This seems a bit gimmicky to me.
While it’s true that you want a strong coffee to make up for the additional water from the ice, a filter (ie not espresso-style) coffee brewed in a superautomatic espresso machine will never be as strong as a true drip or French Press coffee.
Similarly, while the over-ice coffee might be brewed at a slightly lower temperature than a “drip style” coffee, video demonstrations (including this one) of the machine show that ice still melts very quickly when it comes into contact with the Dinamica’s over-ice coffee.
That being said, there are dozens and dozens of reviews of the machine that specifically point to its iced coffee functionality as a highlight.
Therefore I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Quality of Milk-Based Drinks
The Dinamica uses a Panarello milk frother.
This means that there is a sleeve around the milk frother to help pump extra air into the milk.
While it is easy for a beginner to froth milk with these types of steam wands, you can never achieve coffee-shop-style silky microfoam with them.
The models of the machine with automatic milk frothers are a fair bit better for milk-based drinks, mainly because of their multiple milk consistency settings.
Overall Quality of Coffee Rating: 8/10
The Delonghi Dinamica makes an excellent espresso by superautomatic standards. Its True Brew Over Ice setting receives rave reviews as well.
Functionalities
The different Dinamica models vary quite wildly in their functionalities. Overall though, Delonghi Dinamicas do not have quite the level of functionality as the other popular superautomatic machines like Jura and Philips.
Preset Coffee Types
The Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W/B (the “base-level” one) only has four black coffee presets. These are (as per the machine’s manual):
| Coffee Name | Description |
| Espresso | 1.35 oz of water brewed under pressure through a puck of coffee for about 30 seconds |
| Lungo | 4 oz of water brewed under pressure through one puck of coffee for about a minute |
| “Drip Style” Coffee | 5.5 oz of water brewed slowly (for around 2 minutes) through one puck of coffee |
| TrueBrew Over Ice | 3.4 oz of water brewed slowly (for around 3 minutes) through one puck of coffee |
The more expensive Delonghi Dinamicas have far more recipe presets, with the Dinamica Plus having all the types of coffee that you would ever want (plus some that you probably don’t).
I think it’s a shame that only the Dinamica Plus has a double espresso.
This is one of the most popular espresso-style drinks and is the base of all milk-based drinks in coffee shops so really should be preset on any espresso machine. It is a glaring omission on three of the four Dinamica models.
Milk Settings
Since you froth your own milk on the Dinamicas with manual frothers, they do not have any preset recipes for milk-based drinks.
Unfortunately, you can only make one texture of frothed milk with the manual frother, so you cannot really make a “true” latte or “true” cappuccino (they use very different textures of milk and the Dinamica makes something somewhere in between the two of these).
Dinamicas with an automatic milk frother can make three textures of milk allowing you a wider variety of milk-based drinks.
Drink Customizations
The Dinamica lets you customize the strength and size of your drinks, however, it does not make this as easy to do as many other superautomatic machines.
Customizing Coffee Strength
The Dinamica has buttons that allow you to adjust coffee strength as you brew.
The brew strength is measured by a scale of 1-5 coffee beans.
Turning up the strength simply adds more ground coffee into the brew.
Since the brew units in superautomatic machines are smaller than those in automatic and semi-automatic machines, you should always brew on the strongest setting. Engineers from Delonghi themselves have confirmed this to be the case.
Customizing Brewing Temperature
The Dinamica has three options for brewing temperature, ranging from “low” to “high”.
Delonghi technicians recommend you brew at the highest possible temperature unless you live at a significant altitude.
Customizing Serving Sizes
The Delonghi Dinamica does allow you to customize its serving sizes, but it does this in a very clunky way.
Whereas many superautomatic machines allow you to select a specific serving size for each coffee as you make it, the Delonghi Dinamica only lets you reprogram the serving size of a specific coffee preset.
This means that once you have changed the serving size of a coffee preset, that is the set serving size until you reprogram the preset again.
You cannot alter serving sizes for each coffee as you make them.
What is more annoying is you cannot set serving sizes to a predetermined amount.
Rather you have to put the machine into “customize mode”, let it brew the coffee that you want to adjust, and then stop the brew when it reaches your desired serving size.
This means that you adjust the serving by eye rather than by specific volume.
All in all, this is quite an unintuitive way of customizing serving sizes.
It is so badly designed that most product demonstrations of the Delonghi Dinamica say that you cannot customize serving sizes at all. I am sure that many people who own the machine do not know how to do this because it is really hard to figure out.
Customizing Coffee and Milk Ratios
While you can customize the milk to coffee ratios endlessly with machines with manual frothers, it’s a shame that the Dinamicas with automatic frothers do not let you do this.
Most superautomatic machines with automatic milk frothers that I have reviewed give you the ability to adjust coffee and milk quantities in each drink, so it’s surprising that the Delonghi Dinamica does not let you do this.
Functionalities Rating: 6/10
Although the Dinamica offers a good range of drinks, I’d like to be able to customize the drinks a bit further and for it to be easier to make these customisations.
Ease Of Use
The machine is very easy to make drinks with. Just remember to always keep a cup underneath it as it likes to perform a lot of rinse cycles, often seemingly at random. The machine can be tricky to troubleshoot since it is not great at telling you what problems it has and signposting how to fix them.
Ease of Set Up
The machine is very easy to set up.
All you need to do is plug it in, fill it up with water, take a water hardness test (the machine comes with a test strip to allow you to do this) and have it perform a rinse cycle.
The machine will dispense a LOT of water (more than a pint’s worth) in its first rinse cycle so make sure you have a few cups ready to catch this. The drip tray will not be able to hold all the water dispensed during this process.
Ease of Making Drinks
Making a coffee with the machine involves ensuring that it is filled with ground coffee beans and water and then pressing the button corresponding to the type of coffee that you want.
You can see what each of these buttons corresponds to below:
With the version of the machine with a manual milk frother, you will need to learn what each of the buttons corresponds to in order to reliably select the right drink. Fortunately, I don’t think these buttons are too cryptic.
With the versions of the machine with an automatic milk frother, you have a text screen telling you what each drink is when you press its button. This makes the machine much easier to use for beginners.
Ease of Milk Frothing
The milk frother on these machines is as easy to use as physically possible.
So long as the steam wand is in the milk for around 30 seconds, you will get decently frothed milk (this is why the machine uses a Panarello-style milk wand).
There is basically no learning curve to it.
You ideally want to use a metal milk jug so you can feel through the jug when the milk is hot enough. Unfortunately, the Dinamica does not come with this, which I think is a bit stingy considering how much the machine costs.
Ease of Customizing Drinks
While customizing the strength and brewing temperature of your drinks is easy, the way that the Dinamica adjusts serving size settings is really unintuitive.
I have spoken about this in-depth earlier in the article, but when you compare how easy it is to change serving sizes on Jura and higher-end Philips machines (which are still cheaper than the Dinamica), it really does put into light how unnecessarily difficult this is.
Ease of Cleaning
The machine is easy to clean since so many of its parts that come into direct contact with milk, coffee or water are removable and machine washable.
You can find a table of which of the Dinamica’s components are removable and machine washable below:
| Component | Is it removable? | Is it machine washable? |
| Water tank | Yes | No |
| Drip tray | Yes | Yes |
| Used coffee container | Yes | Yes |
| Grinder | No | No |
| Steam wand sleeve | Yes | Yes |
| Brew group | Yes | No |
I really like the fact that the machine’s brew group is removable.
So many technical issues with superautomatic espresso machines come from blocked or stiff brew groups.
The fact that you can remove, clean and lubricate the Delonghi Dinamica’s brew group means that the machine should be able to perform at its best for a lot longer than machines that do not allow you to do this (Jura machines, for example).
Ease of Descaling
The machine has a descale warning light (the button at the top right of the control panel) that flashes when the machine needs descaling and illuminates when the machine is in descale mode.
I like that the machine tells you when it needs to be descaled because brewing with a machine that needs to be descaled can cause irreversible damage to it.
Descaling the machine is a little bit complicated, but it is well explained in the machine’s manual. The descaling process takes about forty minutes.
Since the machine can take a water filter, it does not need to be descaled as often as many superautomatic espresso machines.
Ease of Troubleshooting
The Delonghi Dinamica indicates any faults that it has by having symbols above its control panel that illuminate.
Unfortunately, it is not obvious what these symbols mean. This is made all the more confusing by the fact that these symbols can illuminate solidly or flash depending on what the specific issue is.
This unclear way of telling you what the problem is with your machine means that you NEED to keep the manual with you to help you troubleshoot the machine.
The manual is well written and should help you fix most faults with the machine, but I really wish the machine could tell you IN PLAIN ENGLISH when it has a problem and how to fix it.
Delonghi’s customer support is also poor.
There are very long wait times on the phone and if you need to return a machine then you have to take it yourself to a service center. There are not a huge number of these service centers so many of you will have to travel a long way to get to them.
For a high-end machine that costs in excess of $1000, this is not good enough.
Overall Ease of Use Rating: 7/10
While the day-to-day use of the Delonghi Dinamica is straightforward, things can get tricky if something goes wrong with the machine. Technical issues should be better signposted on the machine.
Design and Build Quality
The Delonghi Dinamica is very reliable and rarely succumbs to technical problems. I do however wish that its pump was a little bit more powerful so that it could work with finer grinds.
Quality of Grinder
The Dinamica uses a stainless steel conical burr grinder. This is a high-quality grinder, suitable for making espresso, and will usually set you back at least $150 to buy on its own.
The grinder has 13 settings, however, anything below setting 3-4 will cause the machine to clog up and brew with too low a pressure.
Anything above setting 7 will lead to a very flat-tasting espresso. This makes you think that a large number of grind settings in the Dinamica’s grinder is to just tick a box.
The hopper holds 10.5 oz of coffee beans, however, its lid is not airtight or lightproof.
This means that coffee beans will deteriorate if they are in the hopper for a long time.
You are better off adding fresh beans each day that you use the machine.
Quality of Brewing Mechanism
The machine creates a good espresso for a superautomatic machine and rarely seems to succumb to reductions in brewing temperature or pressure.
This suggests that the quality of its coffee-making mechanism is really high.
The Dinamica’s brew unit could benefit from a pump that generates higher pressure so it can work with finer grinds. This is a feature that has been added to the Dinamica Plus, in fairness.
I really like the fact that you can remove the brewing unit easily. This means that the unit can be easily cleaned so your coffee will not be contaminated with stale coffee grounds.
Being able to clean and lubricate the unit also means that the Dinamica will be able to brew at its absolute best for longer.
Quality of Steam Wand
The Dinamica’s steam wand is powerful enough to steam several portions of milk in one go.
Since the machine uses a Panarello steam wand, there is a ceiling on the quality of foamed milk that you can make (you can never make coffee-shop-style microfoam for example).
Delonghi has intentionally done this because they want their steam wand to be as easy to use as possible, even at the expense of the quality of foamed milk that it can create.
The automatic milk frother on the Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI and Dinamica Plus is excellent. You can create better milk foam with these than the “base-level” Dinamica’s manual steam wand.
External Build Quality
Although you can tell that the exterior of the machine is made of plastic, it still feels sturdy.
The machine does an excellent job of utilizing space. It is very compact for a machine with such functionality.
I particularly like how its water tank slides out from the front.
This means that you do not need to lean over the machine to remove its water tank which can be a problem if you have limited vertical clearance above the machine (if you have low kitchen cabinets, for instance).
Are There Any Known Technical Issues With the Machine?
After pouring through the feedback of the Delonghi Dinamica on Amazon, Reddit and YouTube comments, I could not find any recurring technical issues with the machine.
A lot of people commented that the machine would enter rinse cycles at random, but in my experience with Delonghi machines, the machine enters rinse cycles regularly but not at random.
Rather they enter rinse cycles:
- When you turn the machine on
- Straight before you make a coffee
- Straight after you make a coffee
- Just before they turn off
Since the machine has an auto-off, these final rinses may seem to happen “at random” because they do not proceed or follow any obvious event.
The other complaint I commonly saw online was at Delonghi’s poor customer service.
Considering how much this machine costs, it is quite concerning that it is hard to get support if you cannot get it to work.
Overall Build Quality Rating: 9/10
The machine is compact, sturdily built and reliable. While it cannot match more expensive Jura machines for looks, they come close in terms of their internal build quality.
Value For Money
I think that the Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W/B and the Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI both offer excellent value for money.
It is more expensive than Philips machines but justifies this by having a higher build quality and making better coffee than those machines.
It is much cheaper than similar Jura machines despite there being not much difference in their performance (Jura machines just look and feel higher quality).
I would say that Delonghi Magnifica Evo offers slightly better value for money than the Dinamica range. They are very similar except the Evo does not offer the over-ice mode.
If you do not plan on making iced coffee with your machine then you will get more bang for your buck with the Magnifica Evo.
Overall Value For Money Rating: 8/10
What Users Say
As of September 2022, the Delonghi Dinamica has been reviewed 252 times on Amazon and has an average rating of 4.2 stars out of 5.
Positive reviews of the Delonghi Dinamica often talk about how good the coffee that it makes is.
Amazon Review, August 2019:
“Certainly not the quality of a pro machine or a pro barista. Realistically I’d give this a 75% on the comparison scale [compared to coffee shop standard]. Even though I’ve given this a 75% comparison score, I am giving this 5 stars because this is a home machine and of all the ones I’ve personally owned this is by far the best. The next step up is a professional machine costing in the thousands but that’s not in the budget for me.”
Negative reviews of the Delonghi Dinamica say that the machine can be hard to troubleshoot because of the lack of clarity of its warning lights:
Amazon Review, July 2019:
“Ok, this thing is a pain in the butt. It uses tons of water even before you get your coffee. Then uses even more after you get it. The “problem” symbols are lit up with strange designs, so I need to get out the booklet to see what this thing needs.”
Many reviews of Delonghi machines say that their customer support is poor.
Common complaints are very long wait times to speak to a customer representative, and having to return faulty machines yourself to their service centers (of which there aren’t that many so you have to travel far to get there).
Product Alternatives
The two best alternatives to the Delonghi Dinamica are the Philips 5400 LatteGo and the Deloghi Magnifica Evo.
Philips 5400 LatteGo – Cheaper Alternative with an Automatic Milk Frother
If you want a similar machine with an automatic milk frother that is significantly cheaper than the dinamica range, then I would recommend the Philips 5400 lattego
The Philips 5400 LatteGo is just over half the price of the Delonghi Dinamica with milk frother.
For the lower price, you get a machine that is bulkier, feels more plasticky and doesn’t make as good black espresso
However you still get a very wide range of milk drinks, and it has an excellent milk frother so the quality of its milk-based drinks is good.
If you are primarily going to use the machine for milk-based drinks then the Philips 5400 LatteGo is a good option. For more information on this machine, please see my Philips 5400 LatteGo Review.
Delonghi Magnifica Evo – Cheaper Alternative with a Manual Milk Frother
The Delonghi Magnifica is around 20% cheaper than the Delonghi Dinamica.
The two main differences between the basic Dinamica and the Magnifica Evo are that:
- The Evo cannot dispense water through its steam wand so you need to clean it thoroughly after every drink you make.
- The Evo cannot take a water filter. This means coffee can taste worse if you live in a hard water area and that the machine needs to be scaled more often.
If you live in a softer water area than the Evo’s inability to take a water filter makes very little practical difference to how you use the machine.
Final Verdict
I would recommend buying the Delonghi Dinamica.
The Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35020W/B and Delonghi Dinamica ECAM35075SI offer particularly good value for money.
I’d recommend buying the former if you want a machine with a manual milk frother and the latter if you want a machine with an automatic milk frother.
For more information on Delonghi’s line of espresso machines please see my roundup of the best Delonghi espresso machines.
