Philips 5500 LatteGo: 20 drinks, iced recipes, mixed data

Twenty drinks on the usual Philips hardware

Philips’s spec data lists 20 programmed drinks. The step up from the 5400’s 12 comes mostly from iced versions of drinks such as espresso, americano, cappuccino and latte macchiato.

Two cautions. A drinks count is the manufacturer’s own tally, useful within a brand and slippery between brands. And more programmes do not mean more hardware: tank (1.8 l), hopper (275 g), grinder data, pump pressure and power are those of the 5400. The milk container is still 0.26 l, about two cappuccinos a fill if each takes 100 to 120 ml. The menu is long; the container is not.

The body measures 24.6 cm wide, 37.1 cm high and 43.3 cm deep, the shared Philips footprint, and weighs 8 kg.

So the question is simple. Will someone in your house press the iced buttons? If yes, the 5500 has the widest choice of them in the Philips range. If no, read the Philips 5400 LatteGo profile first.

• Philips Series 2200 EP2220/102
• Philips Series 3300 LatteGo EP3347/905
• Philips 5400 Series LatteGo EP5446/7012
• Philips 5500 Series LatteGo EP5546/7020

Milk, grinder and brew group

The LatteGo carafe is the same design as on the 3300 and 5400: two parts and no tubes, according to Philips. The grinder is described as ceramic with 12 settings. The brew group is removable in Philips’s data, read on the sister model EP5544/50.

For the upkeep that all this implies, see our cleaning guide and descaling guide. If you live in a hard-water area, the water hardness guide is worth reading before any bean-to-cup purchase.

UK model and variants

The figures here were read on the EP5546/70, which is also the model Philips lists for the UK, so for once the code in our sources and the code on a UK listing agree. Philips gives one other 5500 model as a millimetre taller. Other codes exist on the Continent (EP5544/50 in Germany and France, EP5549/70 in France). The brew-group line in our table was read on the EP5544/50.

Colour is the one thing we have not pinned down for the UK listing we link to, so check the finish on the product page.

Where Philips’s own data conflicts

We would rather show a blank than choose between two manufacturer statements.

• App connectivity. “No” for the EP5546/70 in Philips’s German and UK data; “yes” for the French EP5549/70. Philips mentions its HomeID app as a source of help and recipes. Whether any 5500 can be controlled from a phone is not something the data settles, so the line is empty in our table.
• Number of drinks. 20 in the spec data, 22 in some French summaries. We use 20.
• User profiles. Indicated for the 5500, without a number. The 5400’s four profiles are stated; the 5500’s are not counted.

Also missing from the data

• Noise. SilentBrew is a name on the spec sheet, not a number: Philips publishes no decibel figure for the 5500. We make no claim about noise until we have measured it; it is on our list of planned measurements.
• Burr shape and heating system. “Ceramic” only; the heating system is not published.
• Maximum cup height. Not in the data we read.
• UK guarantee. Philips’s data gives two years for a sister model sold in Germany. We found no UK figure for the EP5546/70, so our table points you to the retailer’s terms.

Neighbours worth comparing

• The 5400 and 3300 share the body; the step between those two is covered in Philips 3300 vs 5400 LatteGo, and the logic carries over.
• The whole range is in our Philips range comparison.
• For a long drinks list from another brand, the JURA E8 counts 27 specialities in a higher price bracket, with a milk hose instead of a carafe.

To check whether a 20-drink menu matches how you actually drink, try the machine finder; for running costs, the cost per cup calculator.