Philips 3200 vs De’Longhi Dinamica Plus: is the step up worth it?

Philips 3200 vs Dinamica Plus 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 level 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.

Design, size and build

These two take up almost the same patch of counter, but they feel like machines from different price bands.

The Philips 3200 measures about 9.7 inches wide, 14.6 inches tall and 17 inches deep, and it weighs about 17.6 lb. The body is mostly plastic, with a stainless steel drip tray cover.

The De’Longhi Dinamica Plus is about 9.3 inches wide, 14.2 inches tall and 17.3 inches deep, at about 21 lb. Its titanium finish and heavy brushed stainless tray cover felt clearly more premium in the hand.

The 3200 looks tidy and modern, though the body is mostly plastic.

The 3200 looked tidy and modern on my counter, and it never felt cheap. It just doesn’t feel premium, and its small drip tray was my main recurring annoyance.

Both load water from the front or side without moving the machine, and both fitted comfortably under my wall cabinets.

Height on the counter

Both fit under standard wall cabinets with room for the hopper lid.

Our tip: Keep either machine away from sunny windows and the stove, because heat makes beans in the hopper go stale much faster.

Setup and the first week

The 3200 has no screen menu, so a few settings hide behind button presses. With the machine off, you hold certain buttons for three seconds, and water hardness is set through the aroma button.

It comes with the AquaClean✕AquaClean filterPhilips’ water filter cartridge. It sits in the tank, softens the water and, if you change it when the machine asks, Philips says you can go up to 5,000 cups before you need to descale. filter, a measuring scoop, a test strip, brew group grease and a storage lid for the milk jug.

The Dinamica Plus guides you through everything on its touchscreen: language, water hardness, filter choice and a rinse. From a cold start, it rinses for about 30 seconds every time.

On both, the first few coffees were flat while the grinder settled. I judged the 3200 after a few days and the Dinamica Plus after about the fifth cup.

The Dinamica Plus walks you through setup on its touchscreen.

Controls, profiles and the app

The 3200 uses drink icons and buttons with three aroma strengths, three temperatures and adjustable coffee and milk length. It is simple and quick, but everyone in the house shares one set of defaults.

That caused small arguments. My partner found the breakfast mug better one volume step lower, which changed it for me too.

The Dinamica Plus has a bright 3.5-inch color touchscreen with picture-based icons. It stores three personal profiles plus a guest mode, and each saves volume, strength and temperature for every drink.

Its Smart One Touch feature moves your most-used drinks to the front. After one week, my top four were on the first screen.

The Coffee Link app works over Bluetooth only, so you need to be near the machine. I used it a lot in week one to fine-tune grind time, water volume and pre-infusion✕Pre-infusionA short soak of the ground coffee before full pressure starts, so the water flows through the puck evenly. per drink, and rarely after that.

Our tip: Write your favorite settings on a sticky note on the 3200, because without profiles one person’s change quietly becomes everyone’s default.

The drink menu: 5 vs 16

The 3200 makes five one-touch drinks: espresso, coffee, americano, cappuccino and latte macchiato, plus hot water. It can make two espressos or coffees at once.

The Dinamica Plus makes 16, including Doppio+, Long, Cappuccino Mix, flat white✕Flat whiteA short milk coffee with a double shot and a thin layer of silky milk. It is stronger and less foamy than a cappuccino., caffelatte, hot milk and Over Ice.

One-touch drinks per category

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

For a mixed household that lives on cappuccinos and latte macchiatos, five is honestly enough. If you want a proper flat white or an iced coffee without improvising, the Dinamica Plus is the only one of the two that does it.

Grinder and dose

This is the biggest difference between these two machines, and it explains almost everything about how they taste.

Both have 12 to 13 grind settings, adjusted by a knob inside the bean hopper. The 3200 uses 100% ceramic burrs✕Ceramic burrsGrinding parts made of ceramic instead of steel. They stay sharp for a long time and produce less heat, which helps protect the coffee’s aroma., and the Dinamica Plus uses 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..

The dose is where they split. On the strongest setting, I measured the 3200’s dose at about 8 grams, or 0.28 ounces. On the Dinamica Plus, the dry puck at its highest dose weighed about 15 grams.

Maximum dose per shot

My measurements with a medium-dark blend. A café double for comparison.

A typical café double uses 14 to 18 grams. The Dinamica Plus sits right in that range, and the 3200 uses about half.

On the 3200, my best balance was a few steps finer than the default. On the Dinamica Plus, I settled on setting 3 after one-click changes over a couple of days.

Espresso quality

With twice the coffee, the Dinamica Plus should win this, and it did.

On the 3200, the strongest aroma made about 1.1 ounces of espresso from that 8-gram dose. It was smooth and mild, closer to a lungo✕LungoA long espresso made with more water than usual. It is lighter in body than a classic short shot. than a classic espresso.

The best I could get was the strongest aroma, the smallest volume and a grind two steps finer than default. It was pleasant, but never strong or syrupy.

With nearly twice the dose, the Dinamica Plus pulled the far richer espresso.

On the Dinamica Plus, the default espresso was too long. At Extra Strong, grind 3 and about 0.7 ounces, the ratio landed near 1:3, with a thick, hazelnut-colored crema✕CremaThe golden, foamy layer on top of a fresh espresso. It forms when pressure pushes oils and gases out of the coffee. that lasted several minutes.

It had heavy body, chocolate notes and low acidity, and it brewed at a steady 190 to 200°F. The fourth espresso I made for guests matched the first.

My espresso ratings

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

Our tip: Shorten the default espresso volume on both machines, because a smaller cup was the single biggest improvement to taste on either one.

Americano and long coffee

Both have an americano, and both make a good mug of black coffee if you set them up right.

On the 3200, the largest coffee size stretched that 8-gram dose too far and tasted thin. My fix was to make two espressos into one mug, which tasted noticeably fuller.

The Dinamica Plus has two long drinks. Long grinds and brews twice for about 3.7 ounces of mild, filter-like coffee, and Coffee uses one dose at medium pressure.

I tuned its Coffee drink to 3.4 to 3.9 ounces on Extra Strong, and it became my mid-morning mug. It tasted rounder than anything the 3200’s coffee button made.

Pushing a big volume of water through a small dose tends to taste bitter and drying, which is exactly what I tasted on the 3200’s largest coffee setting.

Our tip: For a stronger long drink on the 3200, make two espressos into one mug instead of choosing the largest coffee size.

Milk drinks: LatteGo vs LatteCrema

Both make one-touch milk drinks from a jug that clips onto the front, and neither has a hose to a milk carton. Beyond that, they take different approaches.

Philips 3200: LatteGo

The Philips 3200 uses a two-part, tubeless LatteGo✕LatteGoPhilips’ tube-free milk jug. Milk is pulled up and mixed with steam and air inside the jug itself, so there are no tubes to clean. The parts snap apart and go in the dishwasher. jug that holds about 260 ml. You fill it, clip it on and press cappuccino or latte macchiato.

My cappuccino took just over a minute. The foam was creamy and fairly fine, and the latte macchiato came out in neat layers with a soft foam cap.

It is not pourable microfoam, and you get no control over the texture. My ratings for the LatteGo were 9.5 for convenience and 9.2 for cleaning ease, but 7.2 for foam texture and 4.0 for control.

Dinamica Plus: thermal LatteCrema

The De’Longhi Dinamica Plus uses a double-walled stainless steel carafe. Milk I poured in at fridge temperature stayed cold through several drinks, including six cappuccinos in a row.

Its dial gives three foam levels: left for smooth milk in a flat white, center for a latte and right for dense cappuccino foam. That control is the big difference.

The cappuccino pours milk first and espresso second, for about 6 ounces with clear layers. The Cappuccino Mix flips the order, and it tasted sweeter and more velvety.

The 3200’s latte macchiato came out in neat layers with a soft foam cap.

Milk system ratings compared

My ratings out of 10. LatteGo on the 3200 against whole milk on the Dinamica Plus.

Both aim for the same sweet temperature. Milk at 60 to 65°C, or 140 to 150°F, tastes sweetest, and research from the University of Camerino found the best foam structure at around 60°C.

Our tip: Use cold whole milk on both machines, because it gave the creamiest foam every time, with barista oat milk the best plant option.

Iced coffee

The 3200 has no iced drink. I made iced coffee by pulling an espresso, letting it cool for a short while and pouring it over ice, because hot espresso straight onto ice waters it down fast.

The Dinamica Plus has an Over Ice drink that brews a concentrated coffee at a lower temperature, made to be poured over a full glass of ice. It became my default iced coffee, with a splash of cold milk on warm days.

Neither makes true cold brew or cold foam. If iced drinks are a big part of your summer, the Dinamica Plus is the easier of the two.

Our tip: Fill the glass with ice before you press start for any iced drink, because ice added afterwards never chills the coffee evenly.

Hot water and tea

The 3200 has a hot water button, which I used for tea and for warming cups. Its top is not an active cup warmer, so rinsing the cup with hot water made a real difference to espresso temperature.

On the Dinamica Plus, you swap the milk carafe for a separate hot water spout each time. It works fine, but it is one more part to keep within reach.

Cleaning and upkeep

This is the 3200’s strongest point. After every milk drink, I rinsed the LatteGo jug under the tap for about 10 seconds, and once a day it went in the dishwasher.

On the Dinamica Plus, you turn the carafe dial to Clean after each milk drink, and hot water and steam flush the milk path in about 15 seconds. Then every day you wash the lid parts: the pickup tube, the Venturi✕Venturi pieceThe small part in the carafe lid where steam rushing through a narrow channel creates suction, pulling milk up and mixing in air. piece and the dial.

Both have a removable brew group that you rinse weekly under the tap and grease every couple of months. The 3200’s slides out of the side, and the Dinamica Plus’s sits behind the water tank.

The 3200’s first weekly rinse removed a surprising amount of brown residue, so don’t skip it.

The 3200’s two-part LatteGo jug was the easiest milk system to clean in this test.

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

With the AquaClean filter swapped when prompted, Philips says the 3200 can go up to 5,000 cups before descaling✕DescalingRunning a mild acid through the machine to dissolve the mineral scale that hard water leaves behind in the heater and pipes..

Our tip: Empty the 3200’s drip tray every day even if it looks half full, because the start-up and shut-down rinses fill it faster than you expect.

Noise

Neither machine is silent. The 3200 makes a short, fairly loud grinder burst and a steady steam hiss while frothing.

The Dinamica Plus’s grinder makes a short, firm burst that is noticeable but not harsh, and its milk system has a soft hiss. Of the two, it felt slightly calmer in the morning.

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

In a small apartment with an early riser, I rated the 3200 good rather than excellent for noise.

Water, beans and supplies

Both have a 1.8-liter tank. The 3200’s comes out from the side and the Dinamica Plus’s slides out from the front.

Here is roughly how far one full tank went in my testing, allowing for rinses.

Rough maths from my testing. Your numbers depend on cup size.

With three or four drinks each morning, the 3200’s tank lasted about a day and a half. The Dinamica Plus lasted about two days for two people.

Medium-dark roasts gave the best body and sweetness on both and stood up well in milk. An Arabica and Robusta blend added crema and punch to the 3200’s mild shots.

Avoid oily or flavored beans on both, because they clog the grinder. Give any new bean about a week before you judge it, and put the used grounds in the compost.

Medium-dark blends gave the 3200’s mild espresso the most body.

Our tip: Use cold, fresh water and keep the filter in if your water is hard, but skip distilled water, because coffee needs some minerals to taste right.

Real-life scenarios

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

For espresso and a long menu, the Dinamica Plus is the clear step up.

My scorecard

These are my own scores out of 10 from my single reviews of each machine.

Philips 3200

De’Longhi Dinamica Plus

Overall, I rate the Dinamica Plus 8.6 and the 3200 8.0. The Dinamica Plus is the better coffee machine, and the 3200 is the easier one to live with.

Which one should you buy?

It comes down to one question: how much does the espresso itself matter to you? If the answer is a lot, the Dinamica Plus is worth the step up. If you mostly drink milk drinks and want the simplest routine, the 3200 is hard to beat. Still weighing other options? I rank every model I’ve tested in my guide to the best Philips espresso machines.

For more context, see my Philips 3200 vs Magnifica Evo comparison, or read my full Philips 3200 review and De’Longhi Dinamica Plus review.

For espresso lovers and shared kitchens, the Dinamica Plus is worth the step up.

Philips 3200 vs Dinamica Plus 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, americanos, long coffee, cappuccinos and latte macchiatos on both, plus flat whites, Cappuccino Mix and Over Ice drinks on the Dinamica Plus.

I weighed doses and yields, measured drink volumes, tested every strength, volume and temperature setting and worked through the grind range with several roasts.

I foamed whole, semi-skimmed, skim and barista oat milk, ran every cleaning routine and then compared my notes with Philips’ and De’Longhi’s specifications and owner documentation.

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