De’Longhi vs Philips vs Jura: which super-automatic brand is best?

De’Longhi vs Philips vs Jura 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 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.

Three brands, three philosophies

De’Longhi, Philips and Jura dominate fully automatic coffee machines, and each has a very clear idea of what matters most.

De’Longhi is the value specialist. Its machines put a lot into the grinder and the dose, so even the cheaper models pull a full, sweet shot, and its milk carafes make dense foam.

Philips focuses on convenience. Its LatteGo jug is the easiest milk system I know to clean, its brew group slides out for rinsing, and its touch panels are almost impossible to get wrong.

Jura is the premium Swiss brand. It invests in extraction, with a large dose and its Pulse Extraction Process✕Pulse Extraction Process (P.E.P.)Instead of pushing water through the coffee in one steady stream, the machine sends it in short, rapid pulses. It helps short drinks like espresso extract more evenly., and in build quality, with quiet grinders and solid bodies.

I used one machine from each brand as my everyday coffee maker for four weeks: the De’Longhi Magnifica Evo, the Philips 3200 and the Jura E6. They are the models most people shortlist, and together they show each brand’s character clearly.

Our tip: Decide which matters more to you, the taste of a straight espresso or the time spent cleaning, because that single answer usually picks the brand.

Design, size and build

The De’Longhi and Philips are both narrow. The Magnifica Evo is about 9.45 inches wide and the Philips 3200 about 9.7 inches, so either slips into a small gap.

The Jura E6 is wider at about 11 inches, but shorter at about 13.8 inches tall. It sits under low wall cabinets more easily than the other two.

The Jura E6 is the widest of the three, but the most solid and polished.

Width on the counter

Narrower is easier to place. All three are about 17 inches deep.

Build quality follows the price. The Jura’s glossy housing felt solid with no flex anywhere, and it weighs about 22 pounds.

The Evo also feels planted at about 21 pounds, with a silver front panel. The Philips 3200 is the lightest at about 17.6 pounds and mostly plastic, and it felt a little hollow next to the other two.

Our tip: Leave about 2 inches above the bean hopper on any of these, so refilling beans never means sliding the machine forward.

Controls and smart features

The three brands take very different approaches to controls, and you will use them every single day.

The De'Longhi Magnifica Evo uses icons and buttons, one per drink, with strength and size buttons beside them. There is no screen, and no user profiles, so everyone in the house shares the same settings.

The Philips 3200 uses a flat touch panel with clear icons for its five drinks, plus strength, size and temperature that light up in bars. It is the hardest of the three to get wrong.

The Jura E6 has a 2.8-inch color display flanked by real buttons, and each button controls the drink or setting next to it. They work with damp fingers, and nobody in my house needed instructions.

The Jura also has the cleverest trick. Its Smart Mode tracks which drinks you make most and moves them to the first page, so by the end of my first week, americano and espresso sat front and center.

Our tip: Tune your favorite drink once on the Jura and save it when it asks, because it then makes exactly that cup every time.

Grinder and dose

The biggest technical difference between the brands is how much coffee goes into each shot. The dose✕DoseThe amount of ground coffee used for one drink, usually measured in grams. A bigger dose gives a stronger, fuller cup without simply adding bitterness. shapes the taste more than any other setting.

The Jura E6 takes between 5 and 16 grams per brew. At 16 grams, one pass holds a full double shot, so it never has to split a big drink into weak, partial extractions.

The Magnifica Evo offers three levels, about 9, 12 and 15 grams. Its 13-step stainless steel conical burrs✕Conical burrsTwo cone-shaped grinding parts, one inside the other. Beans are crushed between them, and the gap between the burrs sets how fine the coffee is. gave me plenty of room to tune.

The Philips 3200’s maximum dose came to about 8 grams in my testing. Its ceramic grinder has 12 settings and stays sharp for a long time, but the small dose is why its espresso tastes closer to a lungo.

Top dose I measured

A typical café double uses 14 to 18 grams.

Noise followed build quality. The Jura’s grinder sits on rubber mounts with sound damping in the housing, and it made a low, short burst that never woke anyone in my house.

The De’Longhi and Philips grinders were louder but still reasonable, with a short whir lasting around 10 seconds.

Our tip: Turn the grind dial only while the grinder is running on all three brands, because adjusting it with the burrs stopped can jam beans.

Espresso quality

I pulled dozens of shots on each machine with the same medium-dark blend and tasted them side by side in warmed cups. The ranking matched the doses.

The Jura E6 came out on top at 8.8. On setting 3 with the strongest level, its espresso had a heavy body and a thick crema✕CremaThe golden, foamy layer on top of a fresh espresso. It forms when pressure pushes oils and gases out of the coffee., with dark chocolate and toasted nuts and a clean finish.

The De'Longhi Magnifica Evo was a close second at 8.5. At the 15-gram dose, its shot had real body and sweetness, and I would happily drink it every day.

The Philips 3200 was the mildest at 7.2. Its espresso was smooth and crema-topped, but gentle, and it tasted best as the base of a milk drink.

My espresso ratings

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

The Magnifica Evo came within a whisker of the Jura for a fraction of the price.

All three use a thermoblock✕ThermoblockA compact heater that warms water on its way through a metal block, instead of keeping a boiler hot. It heats up fast and switches between tasks quickly. and a 15-bar pump, and all heat up in under a minute. The Evo was ready in about 38 seconds from cold.

If you want more from a Philips, the Philips 5500 adds five strength levels and an Extra Shot. It scored 8.2 for espresso in my testing, the best of the Philips range.

Americanos, long coffee and tea

All three make an americano properly: espresso first, then hot water through a separate path. That keeps the coffee from over-extracting and turning bitter.

The Jura E6 does it best. You can change the strength or volume during a drink, and it asks whether to save the new settings, so your americano gets tuned once and stays that way.

The Jura also has three hot water temperatures. Low suits green and white tea, medium suits herbal tea, and high handles black tea, and its separate hot water spout gave a steady, splash-free stream.

The Evo and Philips each have a single hot water setting, which is fine for americanos and most teas.

Our tip: Make your americano a little shorter than the default, because 3 ounces of water instead of 4 keeps more body and sweetness in the cup.

Milk drinks

Each brand has its own milk system, and each has a clear strength.

De’Longhi’s LatteCrema carafe made the densest, glossiest microfoam✕MicrofoamMilk foam with bubbles so small you can barely see them. It feels silky and glossy, which is what a good cappuccino or flat white needs. of the three. Milk came out at about 140°F, and the carafe goes straight in the fridge between drinks.

Philips’ LatteGo jug is the easiest to clean. It has no tubes, so after a latte you rinse two plastic parts under the tap and you are done.

Its foam is good rather than café-smooth. The 3200 scored 7.8 for milk, and the 5500 improves on it with milk at about 167°F and a two-part carafe that rinses clean in about 10 seconds.

The Jura E6 draws milk through a silicone hose from a carton or container. It makes one foam texture, dense and generous, which suits a cappuccino perfectly but means no one-touch flat white.

If milk drinks are a daily habit, the Jura E8 adds 17 one-touch drinks with silky microfoam, including a real flat white and latte macchiato.

Philips’ LatteGo jug is the easiest milk system of the three to clean.

Milk-drink ratings

My scores out of 10 for texture, temperature and ease.

Our tip: Use cold milk straight from the fridge with every brand, because warm milk makes big, loose bubbles that collapse in the cup.

Cleaning and upkeep

This is one of the clearest brand differences. De’Longhi and Philips 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. A removable one can be rinsed under the tap., which you slide out and rinse under the tap once a week.

Jura seals its brew unit inside the machine. Instead, it rinses the coffee path when it switches on and off, and asks for a cleaning tablet when it is due.

Both approaches work. I liked being able to see the De’Longhi and Philips brew units and know they were clean, while the Jura simply looked after itself with almost no effort from me.

On the milk side, Philips wins clearly. The LatteGo jug has no tubes, so it rinses clean in seconds, while the Evo’s carafe has a Clean setting and the Jura’s hose needs a rinse and a weekly deep clean.

My daily hands-on cleaning time with milk drinks

My estimate, not counting automatic rinses.

The Jura rinses its coffee path automatically and asks for tablets when cleaning is due.

Our tip: Rinse the milk system straight after your last milk drink on any brand, because dried milk takes minutes to remove and fresh milk takes seconds.

Noise

Noise is where Jura’s build quality pays off. The E6’s grinder sits on rubber mounts with sound damping inside the housing, and it made a low, short burst rather than a sharp whine.

The De’Longhi and Philips grinders were louder, with a brighter whir lasting around 10 seconds per drink. Neither was unpleasant, but in an open-plan home at 6 a.m., the Jura was the one that let everyone sleep.

How loud each felt, my ranking

Relative loudness from my side-by-side use. Shorter bars are quieter.

Our tip: Put a thin silicone mat under any of these machines, because it soaks up vibration and makes the grinder sound softer.

Water, filters and running costs

All three hold a similar amount of water. The Jura E6 holds about 64 ounces, the Philips 3200 about 61 ounces and the Magnifica Evo about 60 ounces, so refills come around at about the same pace.

Each brand uses its own filter. Philips’ AquaClean comes in the box with the 3200, Jura uses CLEARYL cartridges, and De’Longhi has its own filter.

Water tank size

From manufacturer specifications.

Jura also uses cleaning tablets for the brew unit and the milk system, and replacement milk hoses every few months. De’Longhi and Philips use fewer consumables, because you rinse their brew units by hand.

Whichever brand you choose, use fresh whole beans within a few weeks of roasting, and avoid very oily or flavored beans that can clog the grinder.

Our tip: Use the water filter from day one on any brand, because preventing scale is far easier than removing it.

Going further: the step-up models

The three machines I compared are each brand’s most popular entry point. If you want more drinks or profiles, every brand has a natural next step.

From De’Longhi, the De'Longhi Rivelia adds a touchscreen, four profiles and two swappable bean hoppers. From Philips, the Philips 5500 Series adds 20 hot and iced drinks, four profiles and a two-part milk carafe that rinses in about 10 seconds.

From Jura, the Jura E8 adds 17 one-touch drinks, silky microfoam and automatic filter tracking. Its milk comes out at about 122°F, though, so pre-warm your cups.

Our tip: Move up a model only for a feature you will use daily, such as profiles or flat whites, because the espresso barely changes within each brand.

A month with each brand

Four weeks with each machine showed me what each brand is really like to live with.

The De’Longhi felt like the best deal from day one. The coffee was rich, the foam was dense and the carafe slipped into the fridge door, and my only complaint was sharing one strength setting with my partner.

The Philips was the machine I never had to think about. It made mild, pleasant drinks, and cleaning the LatteGo jug took seconds, so it never felt like a chore even on busy mornings.

The Jura felt like a premium appliance. Its espresso and americano were the best I made all month, it was the quietest, and its tea water was a bonus I didn’t expect to use as much as I did.

Our tip: Try a straight espresso and a cappuccino from any machine you are considering, because those two drinks show a brand’s strengths and weaknesses fastest.

Real-life scenarios

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

For most households, the Magnifica Evo was the best balance of coffee and cost.

My scorecard

These are my own scores out of 10. The first four come from my single reviews of each machine, and I added value because it often decides this matchup.

De'Longhi Magnifica Evo

Jura E6

Philips 3200 Series

Overall, I rate the Jura E6 8.4, the Magnifica Evo 8.3 and the Philips 3200 8.0. The Evo is the value champion; the Jura is the coffee champion.

Which one should you buy?

It comes down to two questions: how much does the taste of a straight espresso matter to you, and how much cleaning will you tolerate? For the wider picture beyond this matchup, see my guide to the best Jura coffee machines.

For two of these head to head, read my Jura vs De’Longhi, De’Longhi vs Philips and Philips 3200 vs Magnifica Evo comparisons.

For the easiest daily routine, Philips is hard to beat.

De’Longhi vs Philips vs Jura 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, americanos, cappuccinos, latte macchiatos and tea water.

I weighed doses and yields, measured milk and hot water temperatures with a probe thermometer, worked through each grind range and frothed whole, semi-skimmed, skim and oat milk.

I ran every cleaning routine, then wrote up my notes and measurements together and compared them with each brand’s specifications and owner documentation.

• Coffee: dose, crema, body and consistency
• Milk: foam texture, temperature and cleaning
• Workflow: controls, drinks and daily routine
• Ownership: noise, filters, supplies and footprint