Find the machine for the coffee you drink

A commercial 58 mm group and a real wand at a domestic price, with a brass boiler since the E24 revision. No PID, so you learn to time the warm-up — and almost everything on it can be replaced by hand.

Three seconds from cold to ready, and an automatic wand that textures milk better than most people do by hand. Buy it for the milk and the speed; buy the grinder separately, because there isn't one.

Fifteen years on sale and still the bean-to-cup most British households end up with. The brew group comes out for cleaning, which is the feature that decides year five, and the two finest grind settings jam it.

A PID, a real wand and a burr grinder in one body, which is why it is the machine most people learn on. It is also messy to dose and makes you wait between brewing and steaming, and both are the price of the format.

Sealed, one-touch and built to repeat itself for a decade. The brew unit is not meant to come out, which is the trade: you get consistency and give up the ability to service it yourself.

The milk system is the reason to buy it: two parts, no tubes, and it rinses under a tap in seconds. Note the UK code — the /50 sold here has no iced-coffee function, whatever an American review tells you.