Philips 4300 LatteGo Review

Quick answer: I’d recommend the Philips 4300 LatteGo if you want a super-automatic espresso machine with an automatic milk frother under $1,000.

The Philips 4300 LatteGo is the only sub-$1,000 super-automatic espresso machine with a TFT display screen control panel and an automatic milk frother.

In this Philips 4300 LatteGo review, I put the machine through its paces to see whether it is indeed a bargain or whether Philips has cut important corners to create such a feature-rich machine for so cheap.

Let’s get started.

Should I Buy the Philips 4300 LatteGo?

I would only recommend buying the Philips 4300 LatteGo if all of the following apply to you:

• You will primarily drink milk drinks (rather than plain espresso).

• You want a machine with a milk frother (rather than a steam wand).

• Your budget is capped at $1,000.

The Philips 4300 is the ideal machine for someone in this situation as it produces a nice milk foam and is the most user-friendly super-automatic machine available for under $1,000.

If you are buying a machine primarily to make plain espresso with, then the Delonghi Magnifica Evo is a better choice at the same price point as the Philips 4300.

Delonghi super-automatic espresso machines make better-tasting espresso than Philips’ ones due to Delonghi using a higher quality internal brewing unit than Philips.

This is the main reason why Philips’s super automatics tend to be cheaper than Delonghi’s.

However, if you are primarily going to be drinking milk drinks then you probably won’t notice this difference in espresso quality, so you’d get better value with a Philips machine.

Philips 4300 LatteGo Pros

It’s the easiest super automatic espresso machine to keep clean and well maintained.

Easily allows you to adjust your drink’s strength and size.

It has a very intuitive control panel which walks you through every aspect of using your machine through language rather than vague symbols.

Philips 4300 LatteGo Cons

Its espresso isn’t as good as Delonghi or Jura super automatics.

Condensation forms in the bypass doser chute, making it prone to clogging.

Its drip tray has sharp edges.

Philips 4300 LatteGo Features

User Interface

The Philips LCD display screen control panel is one of the machine’s highlights. It makes the machine much easier to use than similarly priced Delonghi machines.

The Philips 4300 LatteGo is controlled by a button-operated TFT touchscreen.

This makes the machine easier to use than one with a touch screen (and much easier to use than one with buttons only). 

Iphones have made all other touch screens seem terrible in comparison, so a button-controlled screen is preferable to a touch screen on an espresso machine.

It’s far easier to press the wrong button with the Delonghi Dinamica Plus’s touch screen than with the Philips 4300’s buttons, for example.

It’s very easy to customize your drink’s strength and size with this machine. Just use the arrows to bump things up or down a few milliliters.

The machine has two user profiles – your customizations automatically save as the default for whatever user profile you’re on.

Available Drinks

The Philips 4300 can make eight coffee drinks. I’ll run through them now:

• Espresso: Not amazing. Decent flavor but lacking in the body (watery, in other words). Similar to what you’d get from a Moka pot and definitely a step up from Nespresso. Worse than what you’d get from a Delonghi super automatic. You get the best results on maximum strength and its finest grind settings. 5/10

• Coffee: Surprisingly good. The machine appears to grind and brew three times, so your coffee is nice and strong. It’s not far off what I’d get from my fancy automatic pour-over and is much, MUCH better than a Keurig. Its default coffee size is 6 oz (180 ml). 8/10

• Americano: It’s a proper Americano in the technical sense in that it’s an espresso shot followed by a similar size squirt of water. It’s noticeably worse than its coffee. 4/10

• Cappuccino: This was good if you gave it a light stir. Because the machine froths milk to a very thick texture, all the milk just sits on top of the espresso. If you drink it before a light stir, you’ll just get a mouthful of espresso and no milk. Don’t stir it too much because it will lose a lot of its texture if you do. 6/10

• Latte Macchiato: This is a lot better than the cappuccino. It has a cool layering effect and your milk actually gets incorporated with your coffee. Its default setting uses a lot of milk but you can turn this down. 8/10

• Cafe Au Lait: This was the machine’s “coffee” mixed with steamed milk. It’s better than the cappuccino, but not as good as the latte macchiato. Again, if you give it a stir its milk loses a lot of texture. 7/10

• Cafe Crema: This seemed to just be an espresso and hot water brewed together (the liquid coming out of the spout was a light brown color). It was very similar to the Americano (but better). 5/10

• Ristretto: This was just a smaller version of espresso. It was slightly duller tasting than the espresso. 5/10

In short, the machine’s coffee and latte macchiato are its best drinks.

Its cappuccino, espresso and cafe au lait are fine.

I wouldn’t recommend it’s ristretto, cafe crema, or Americano.

Drink Customizations

The Philips LatteGo 4300 lets you customize your drink’s strength and size. If you’re brewing a black drink then you have the option of making a double and if it’s a milk drink then you can customize the amount of milk in it.

You can pick one of five strength and size settings for each menu item.

These sizes vary for each drink. For example, a coffee’s default size will be bigger, and there will be bigger changes between each size option than with an espresso.

I really like how these customizations work. 

It’s much easier to just bump up your drink’s strength and size on the fly than having to put the machine into a special “customize mode” to hard code all your drinks (Delonghi super automatics tend to make you do that).

Once you customize a menu item, it will save as the default for whatever user profile you’re on (the machine has two user profiles plus a guest mode which will not save any changes).

LatteGo Milk System

The Philips LatteGo milk system is a carafe that attaches to the machine. It’s much easier to keep clean than any other super automatic’s milk frother.

The machine’s carafe is quite small, it will need to be refilled after every latte macchiato or after every two cappuccinos you make.

It will only steam your milk to one texture. This makes all your milk drinks quite same-y.

The most affordable super-automatic espresso machine that steams milk to multiple textures is the Delonghi Dinamica Plus. 

If you want to drink a lot of different milk drinks then I’d recommend the Dinamica Plus over the Philips 4300 (it’s around twice the price of the Philips 4300, however).

The best thing about the LatteGo milk frother is how easy it is to clean.

The frother comes apart into three pieces which you can then put in the dishwasher.

I LOVE that it doesn’t use a rubber hose (it’s the only milk frother I know of that doesn’t use this). Rubber hoses cause milk to drip everywhere and need to be cleaned very carefully by hand.

The Philips’s lack of a rubber hose alone makes it easier to keep clean than any Delonghi or Jura super-automatic espresso machine with a milk frother.

One small criticism I have of the milk carafe is that its lid just sits on top of the carafe rather than attaching to it with a hinge. This makes it quite easy to accidentally knock the lid off the carafe when you detach it from the machine.

Grinder

The Philips 4300 has a flat ceramic burr grinder with 12 grind size settings. While the grinder itself is perfectly fine, I am a bit concerned about how steam seems to rise up through the grind chute when it brews.

I found that the machine’s lowest settings (1-3) produce the best-tasting coffee.

You can change the grinder by pushing and turning a plastic dial. However, there’s no obvious indicator telling you what setting you’re currently on which is annoying.

My bigger concern with the grinder is how steam appears to rise up through the grinder’s chute when you brew. You can see this by the condensation that forms on the grinder’s lid.

I can see this moisture causing the grinder (and especially the bypass doser) to clog up. The machine’s grinder is not removable, so there’s no obvious fix if this happens.

In fairness, this has not actually happened to me, nor could I find any reports online of other people experiencing this, but it is still a concern.

Rinsing and Cleanings

The machine has dedicated rinse and clean functions which you can access in the settings section of its menu.

This includes a “quick rinse” and a brew group clean.

I like the fact that you have to manually tell the machine to run a rinse cycle, rather than this happening automatically after you brew. 

Delonghi and Jura super automatics rinse automatically after you make a coffee, this can flood your drip tray if you forget to put a second cup under its spout after you brew (this has happened to me countless times).

The only manual cleaning you need to do is emptying its drip tray and used coffee container (these parts aren’t dishwasher safe).

Drip Tray

The Philips 4300 LatteGo’s drip tray has a lot of sharp plastic edges. Its float is completely useless.

I don’t enjoy removing and taking apart the machine’s drip tray. It’s made out of plastic with sharp edges. This is especially true of the piece that covers its water tank.

Although the drip tray has an indicator float, this doesn’t actually move up when it’s full. 

Useless.

I do like how much clearance the machine has between the top of its drip tray and the bottom of its spout. This gives you enough room to brew into most travel cups.

Water Tank

The Philips 4300 has a water tank that pulls out from the front. Its filter means that it can brew around 5000 coffee’s before you need to descale it.

I like how its water tank is open from the top. This makes it easy to clean and quick to dry.

Removable Brewing Unit

You can remove the machine’s brew group to clean and lubricate it manually.

Although the machine has a dedicated brew group cleaning function, being able to actually take out and lubricate the brewing unit should increase your machine’s lifespan.

It even comes with a tube of lubricant to do this with.

Now that I’ve run through the Philips 4300 LatteGo’s features, I’m going to assess the machine across the following criteria:

• Espresso quality
• Milk steaming performance
• User-friendliness
• Ease of cleaning
• Design and durability
• Value for money

Espresso Quality

The Philips 4300 LatteGo produces average espresso. Its drip-style coffee is good though.

All Philips super-automatic espresso machines’ espresso is weak tasting and watery because they use a brew basket with relatively large holes in it.

You can see this by comparing the brew basket in the Philips 4300 to Delonghi’s super automatics brew basket:

These large holes mean that water passes through your coffee puck too quickly for extraction to occur. This results in a thin and dull-tasting espresso shot.

Espresso should be brewed for around 30 seconds, but the Philips 4300 typically brews your espresso in 15 seconds.

The machine’s drip-style coffee is better than its espresso.

It brews drip-style coffee in several stages, so the machine essentially throttles the brewing process. This makes up for the lack of resistance in its brew basket as the machine brews more slowly, to begin with.

Espresso Quality Rating: 5/10

Milk Steaming Performance

The Philips 4300 LatteGo produces decent enough milk foam but doesn’t give you any control over your milk’s texture.

The LatteGo milk system produces a particularly thick milk foam. This is the only milk texture that the machine can produce.

While its milk drinks are perfectly passable, this lack of texture settings means that all its milk drinks are quite same-y.

You’ll get a better variation in milk drinks if you go for a machine that has texture settings. The Delonghi Eletta Explore is your best option if you want this.

Milk Steaming Performance Rating: 7/10

User-Friendliness

The Philips 4300 is one of the easiest super automatics to use.

The machine’s display screen walks you through every aspect of using your machine in plain English – this includes running rinse and descaling cycles.

I particularly like how easy the machine makes customizing your drinks’ strength and size and how you can cancel out any selected drink at just the press of a button. This has stopped me from overflowing my cup on more than one occasion.

Ease of Use Rating: 9/10

Ease of Cleaning

The Philips 4300 Lattego’s lack of any rubber milk tubes and not going into rinse cycles seemingly at random makes it the easiest super-automatic espresso machine to keep clean.

The two biggest causes of mess with super automatic espresso machines are:

• Rubber milk tubes: These inevitably drip milk all over your counter and build up sour milk crust on their inside. Because their holes are so small, it’s very hard to remove this sour milk crust (I often have to blow it out).

• Unexpected rinse cycles: Often super automatics will run a rinse cycle seemingly at random. This can flood your drip tray if you haven’t placed a cup under your spout in advance.

Fortunately, the Philips 4300 LatteGo does not have any rubber milk tubes and you need to manually tell it to run all its rinse cycles (other than on initial turn-on).

These two factors alone make the machine far easier to keep clean than any other super-automatic espresso machine.

The only parts of the machine you need to keep clean are its used ground coffee drawer and milk carafe. Both of these can go in the dishwasher.

Ease of Cleaning Rating: 10/10

Design and Durability

The Philips 4300 LatteGo is very plasticky and cheap feeling. I can’t see the machine lasting more than a handful of years.

Touching its bean hopper and drip tray kind of reminds me of playing with a happy meal toy.

I specifically worry about the amount of steam I see rising out of the machine’s grinder and bypass doser when it brews. This amount of moisture surely makes the machine clogging up likely.

At least the machine can be opened up easily, this can help you to troubleshoot issues if they arise.

I see a lot of people complaining about Philips espresso machines (all models) being defective out of the box, and I’m not surprised if this happens pretty often.

The machine crams as many features as possible and cuts corners with its build quality.

I struggle to see the machine lasting more than a few years because of this. At least it comes with a two-year warranty.

Design and Durability Rating: 5/10

Value for Money

The Philips 4300 LatteGo is a good deal if ease of use is important to you.

The machine’s combination of an excellently designed control panel and an overall design that makes cleanup as simple as possible makes it the most user-friendly super-automatic for under $1,000.

If an LCD display screen is not essential to you, then I might recommend a cheaper Philips unit than the 4300 (I’ll talk more about these other Philips models in just a second).

Value for Money Rating: 8/10

Philips 4300 LatteGo vs Other Philips Espresso Machines

Philips produces four super-automatic espresso machines with LatteGo milk frothers.

These super automatics differ in the following ways:

• The number of drinks it has on its menu
• How far you can customize your coffee’s size and strength
• The machine’s control panel
• Its number of user profiles
• Its price

The table below shows how each Philips model fares in these criteria. The machines are listed from most affordable to most expensive.

I personally think that the Philips 3200 LatteGo and Philips 4300 LatteGo offer you the best value for money.

Both machines have the latte macchiato (the machine’s best drink). Go for the 3200 if you’re not bothered about a TFT screen user interface and the 4300 if you’re willing to pay a bit extra to have one.

For more information on Philips espresso machines please see my Philips 3200 review and Philips 5400 review.

Philips 4300 LatteGo vs Delonghi Magnifica Evo

I’d recommend the Philips 4300 LatteGo over the Delonghi Magnfica Evo if you primarily drink milk drinks, and the Delonghi Magnifica Evo over the Philips 4300 LatteGo if you primarily drink plain espresso.

Like I mentioned earlier, Delonghi super-automatic espresso machines produce better-tasting espresso than Philips ones because they use a better-quality brew basket.

The downside of the Delonghi Magnfica Evo is that it’s harder to customize your drink than the Philips 4300. The Magnifica Evo’s milk frother also uses a rubber hose which is a pain to keep clean.

I’d therefore only recommend the Delonghi Magnifica Evo over the Philips 4300 LatteGo if you will primarily drink plain espresso.

Philips 4300 LatteGo Review: Final Verdict

I recommend the Philips 4300 LatteGo if you want a sub-$1,000 super-automatic espresso machine to primarily make milk drinks with.

If you want to see what your other super automatic options are at this price point then please see my roundup of the best super automatic espresso machines under $1,000.