De’Longhi Magnifica Evo vs Magnifica Start: which budget model should you buy?

Magnifica Evo vs Magnifica Start at a glance

Head to head

The better result in each row is marked, based on my testing and the manufacturer specs. Rows where the two machines are identical have no winner.

Keep in mind that the tally is not my verdict. Some rows matter far more than others, and which ones matter depends on what you drink.

First, which Magnifica Start is which?

De’Longhi sells the Magnifica Start in more than one version, and the naming is genuinely confusing. The one I tested has a manual steam wand and three one-touch drinks: espresso, coffee and americano.

There is also a LatteCrema version of the Start with an automatic carafe, which swaps the americano for a cappuccino and a latte macchiato. If you want one-touch milk at the lowest entry point, that version exists, but this comparison covers the wand model linked on this page.

Our tip: Check the drink icons in the product photos before you buy, because the steam wand and LatteCrema versions of the Start look almost the same from a distance.

Design, size and build

Put the two machines side by side and the family resemblance is obvious. Both are about 9.4 inches wide and 17.3 inches deep, with a front-loading water tank and a bean hopper under a lid on top.

The Start is the shorter of the two at about 13.8 inches tall, against roughly 14.2 inches for the Evo. It also weighs about 19 pounds to the Evo’s 21, mostly because it has no carafe and fewer parts inside.

Both slide under standard wall cabinets. The spouts move up and down on both, from small espresso cups to mugs about 5.5 inches tall.

The Evo’s carafe clips onto the front and comes off for the fridge.

The build is mostly plastic on both, with a silver-look front on the Evo. The Evo’s top surface warmed to about 100°F after 20 minutes of use, so its cup warmer is passive and gentle rather than truly hot.

The Start feels a little simpler, with a backlit touch panel and the steam wand on the right. It is the tidier-looking machine when no carafe is attached.

Height on the counter

Both fit under standard 18-inch wall cabinet clearance with room to lift the hopper lid.

Setup and controls

Setup took about 15 minutes on both. You rinse the tank, fit the filter, set the water hardness with the test strip and prime the circuit.

The Evo was ready to brew from a cold start in about 38 seconds, including a short automatic rinse. The Start took about 40 seconds, so there is nothing between them in daily use.

Neither has a screen. Both use backlit touch icons, with three bean icons for strength, a cup-size control and a few symbols for the water filter and descaling.

The Start’s panel has espresso, coffee, americano, steam and a 2x button.

The learning curve is short on both. My family used the Evo’s cappuccino button on the first morning, while the Start’s steam wand took a week of practice before anyone made milk they were proud of.

Our tip: Run a cup of hot water through before your first drink of the day on either machine, because cold pipes steal heat from the first coffee.

The drink menu: 7 vs 3

The Evo makes espresso, coffee, Over Ice, cappuccino, latte macchiato, MyLatte and hot water. The X2 button makes two coffees at once, but not two milk drinks.

The Start makes espresso, coffee and americano, and its steam wand doubles as a hot water outlet. Everything else is up to you.

One-touch drinks per category

Counted from each machine’s menu. Hot water is not included.

MyLatte was the surprise hit in my house. Instead of pouring a fixed amount, it uses all the milk you put in the carafe, so I made a 2 to 3 fl oz cortado✕CortadoA small drink of espresso cut with roughly the same amount of warm milk, with very little foam. one morning and a big weekend latte the next, with no milk left over.

On the Start, the americano was the button I pressed most. It brews an espresso first and then adds clean hot water, which kept my morning mug sweet and full.

Three milk drinks at one touch: the Evo’s menu is its strongest argument.

Grinder and dose

Both machines use the same steel conical burrs✕Conical burrsTwo cone-shaped grinding parts, one inside the other. Beans are crushed between them, and the gap between them sets how fine the coffee is. with 13 settings, adjusted with a knob inside the hopper. Both default to the middle of the range, and both tasted better a few steps finer.

On the Evo, the three strength levels ground about 9, 12 and 15 grams. At 15 grams the espresso had real body and sweetness, which is a generous dose for an automatic machine in this class.

The Start uses the same brew unit and the same three-step strength control. On its strongest bean icon, it ground a full single dose, and that is why its espresso tasted every bit as rich as the Evo’s.

Coffee dose by strength on the Evo

Weighed on my scale right after grinding.

Where the grind setting landed

Moving from the middle of the range down to setting 3 made the biggest single difference to my espresso on both machines. With a medium-dark blend, setting 3 and the strongest level became my default.

Our tip: Only turn the grind knob while the grinder is running, because turning it with the burrs stopped can jam beans on both machines.

Espresso quality

This is where the two are closest, and where the Start surprised me.

Both run on a 15-bar pump and a thermoblock✕ThermoblockA compact heater that warms water as it flows through a metal block, instead of keeping a boiler hot. It heats up fast and switches tasks quickly., and both use the same removable brew unit. With the same beans and settings, they poured nearly identical shots.

The Start shares its brew unit with pricier models, and it shows in the cup.

How they tasted

With a medium-dark blend at grind setting 3 and the high strength level, the Evo’s espresso had a consistent layer of crema✕CremaThe golden, foamy layer on top of a fresh espresso. It forms when pressure pushes oils and gases out of the coffee. and a full, aromatic body. I tasted cocoa and toasted nuts, and my shots landed around 8 percent TDS✕TDS (total dissolved solids)The share of coffee that ends up dissolved in your cup. Higher numbers mean a stronger, more concentrated drink., a balanced result for an automatic machine.

The Start’s espresso with the same beans had dense crema and the same chocolate-and-nuts profile. On my scorecard it trailed the Evo by a tenth of a point, which is within the difference between two mornings.

The one real catch is the Start’s 2x button. It grinds once and splits that dose across two cups, so each drink is weak and diluted. Brewing two singles back to back was far better.

My espresso ratings

My scores out of 10 for body, crema, flavor and consistency.

Americano and long coffee

A proper americano is espresso plus hot water. A plain long coffee pushes all the water through one puck, which over-extracts it and turns it thin and bitter.

This is the Start’s best trick. Its americano button pulls the espresso first and then adds hot water through a separate path, so the crema partly survives at the edge and the cup tastes sweet and clean.

The Evo has no americano button. I made mine by running hot water from the tap into a big mug first and pulling an espresso on top, which works well but is a two-step job.

My big-mug ratings

My scores out of 10 for body, sweetness and finish in a 10 oz mug.

The Start’s americano made the best big mug of black coffee in this test.

Our tip: Put the hot water in the mug before the espresso when you make an americano on the Evo, because pouring the shot on top keeps more crema.

Milk drinks

This is the deciding section for most buyers, because the two machines take completely different approaches.

Magnifica Evo: one-touch LatteCrema foam

The Evo’s LatteCrema carafe clips onto the front. You pour cold milk in, press cappuccino, latte macchiato or MyLatte, and the machine pours the foam first and the espresso on top.

The foam was dense, fine and hot, and it held its shape to the last sip. My milk measured about 140°F, or 60°C, which is a comfortable drinking temperature that keeps the milk tasting sweet.

After each milk drink, you turn the carafe dial to Clean and the machine flushes the lid with hot water. Then the whole carafe goes back in the fridge with the leftover milk inside.

Foam first, espresso on top: the Evo’s latte macchiato pours in clean layers.

Magnifica Start: a steam wand and some practice

The Start I tested has a Panarello✕Panarello wandA steam wand with a sleeve that pulls in air automatically. It makes big, foamy milk easily, and with the sleeve removed you can make finer microfoam by hand. steam wand on the right. You brew the espresso first, then switch to steam, wait for the thermoblock to heat up and froth milk in a small steel jug.

With the sleeve on, it made tall, airy cappuccino foam from the first try. With the sleeve off, it could make silky microfoam✕MicrofoamMilk foam with bubbles so small you can barely see them. It feels silky and glossy, which is what a good flat white needs. for a flat white, but that took me about a week of practice.

My steaming progress on the Start

My scores out of 10 for foam texture and taste.

How each milk foamed on the Evo

My ratings out of 10 for texture and stability. On the Start, whole milk scored 7.6 and barista oat 7.0.

Our tip: Use cold whole milk or a barista-style oat drink on both, because regular plant drinks and warm milk make big, loose bubbles.

Iced coffee

The Evo has a dedicated Over Ice drink, and it was better than I expected. It brews a concentrated, slightly cooler coffee designed to be poured straight over a full glass of ice.

With a splash of cold milk, it became my afternoon drink on warm days. The key is a full glass of ice, because a few cubes just make a watery, lukewarm coffee.

The Start has no iced setting. You can pull an espresso over ice by hand, but it melts more ice and tastes thinner.

My iced coffee ratings

My scores out of 10 for strength and dilution.

Cleaning and upkeep

On the coffee side, both are easy. They rinse the coffee path when they switch on and off, and both have a removable brew unit✕Brew unitThe part that compresses the ground coffee, holds it while water passes through and then ejects the used puck. that slides out from the side for a rinse under the tap, no tablets needed.

On the Evo, I measured about 1.9 fl oz of rinse water at start-up and about 0.6 fl oz at shutdown, so put a cup under the spouts or empty the drip tray daily.

The milk side

The Evo’s carafe runs a Clean cycle after every milk drink, and once a week you take the lid and tubes apart and wash them. Milk fat builds up in the small passages if you skip it, and the foam starts to sputter.

The Start’s wand needs a purge and a wipe after every use, plus a weekly wash of the sleeve. If milk dries on the tip, the tiny air hole clogs and the foam goes flat.

The Evo’s carafe flushes itself, but the lid still needs a weekly wash.

My daily hands-on cleaning time

My estimate of hands-on time per day, not counting automatic rinses.

The grounds drawer on the Evo holds about 14 pucks. They come out dry and compact on both, and I tipped them into the compost every other day.

Our tip: Rinse the brew unit with water only on both machines, because soap strips the lubricant on the rails and seals.

Noise and heat-up

Both are typical for the class. The grinder is the loudest part, with a short burst at the start of each drink.

On the Evo, the grinder peaked at about 70 to 71 dB for the first five or six seconds. Milk frothing measured 60 to 62 dB and the pump about 60 dB, which is roughly normal conversation.

The Start’s grinder sounded much the same, but its unsealed hopper lid rattled slightly unless I seated it squarely. Neither one woke anyone through a closed door.

How loud the Evo measured

Measured from about 3 feet away with a sound meter app.

Water, beans and supplies

Both use the same 60-ounce tank, the same De’Longhi water filter and the same descaler. Refills come around at the same pace for black coffee.

The one supply difference is beans. The Start’s hopper lid has no seal, and I could taste it: beans that sat in the hopper for five days made noticeably flatter espresso than beans loaded the same morning.

Freshness in the Start’s unsealed hopper

My espresso scores out of 10 with the same bag of beans.

Drinks per 60 oz tank

Rough maths allowing for rinse water. Your numbers depend on cup size.

On caffeine, a Start americano made from two singles carries about twice the coffee of one espresso. For most adults, the FDA cites about 400 milligrams a day as an amount not generally linked to negative effects.

Our tip: Load only a day or two of beans at a time on the Start, and keep the rest of the bag sealed in a cool cupboard.

Real-life scenarios

Specs only go so far. These are the situations where one machine clearly pulled ahead during my testing.

For black coffee households, the Start is the simpler machine to live with.

My scorecard

These are my own scores out of 10. The first four come from my single reviews of each machine, and I added big-mug coffee and drink range because they decide this matchup.

De’Longhi Magnifica Evo

De’Longhi Magnifica Start

Overall, I rate the Evo 8.3 and the Start 7.8. The gap is almost entirely milk. For black coffee alone, the Start matches the Evo and makes the better mug.

Which one should you buy?

It comes down to one question: is milk a daily habit or a weekend treat? Answer that honestly and the choice makes itself. If none of these is quite right for you, my guide to the best super-automatic espresso machines covers the rest of the range I’ve tested.

If you want to see where these two sit in the whole range, my guide to the best De’Longhi super-automatic machines ranks every model, and my Philips 3200 vs Magnifica Evo comparison covers the closest rival to the Evo. For the full single reviews, read my Magnifica Evo review and Magnifica Start review.

For daily milk drinkers, the Evo earns its place on the counter.

Magnifica Evo vs Magnifica Start specifications

From manufacturer specifications and my own testing.

How I tested and compared them

I used each machine as my everyday coffee maker for four weeks, making espresso, long coffee and americanos on both, cappuccinos, latte macchiatos, MyLatte drinks and iced coffee on the Evo, and hand-steamed cappuccinos and flat whites on the Start.

I weighed doses at each strength level, measured milk and coffee temperatures with a probe thermometer, worked through the grind range with the same medium-dark blend, and foamed whole, semi-skimmed, skim, oat and almond milk.

I ran every cleaning routine, tracked how fast beans went stale in each hopper, and then compared my notes with De’Longhi specifications, owner documentation and published test data.

• Coffee: dose, crema, body and consistency.
• Milk: foam texture, temperature and effort.
• Workflow: controls, drink menu and daily routine.
• Ownership: noise, cleaning, water care and footprint.