Pop goes the Vertuo!

I have a feeling that March 2026 just didn’t like me! Within just a few days of each other, both my trusty Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and my Nespresso machine decided to hand in their notice and stop working. Right at the same time when an issue with the Department of Social Protection saw me cut off from the benefits payments that I’ve been relying on since I’d been forced to leave my job for health reasons. The phone will get its own blog post in due course because I have some thoughts on that but for now, let’s talk about that one piece of mission critical hardware, my coffee machine.

For nearly five years, my Nespresso Vertuo Plus had kept me caffeinated through lockdowns, seemingly interminable conference calls, health scares, hospitalisation, mental health breakdowns and job loss. However, in early March of 2026, it suddenly stopped recognising coffee pods. No matter what pod I placed in the machine, it just wouldn’t brew any coffee. To be more precise, it didn’t even detect whether or not a pod was even in the machine. Despite some valiant efforts by Nespresso’s customer service team, both in trying to fix the issue and putting up with my humour, it was the end of the road for the Vertuo Plus. Since it was out of warranty and out of production, a repair would have been more expensive than getting a new machine. So, after one and a half weeks of instant coffee, I popped into my local Nespresso Boutique and got myself a new machine, a combination of credit on my account and discounts getting the effective price for my new Vertuo Pop own from 119€ to just 40€. And, in the spirit of being irresponsible, I opted for Mango as my colour option. We just need more colour in our lives!

Here she is, together with some accessories I was able to score.

Changing of the guard - The size difference between my old Vertuo Plus and the new machine is striking!

I’d known from the start that the Vertuo Pop would be smaller than the machine it was replacing, but damn, that thing is tiny! Not that I mind, mind you. The pint mugs I got with my old machine don’t fit but then again, Vertuo hasn’t had any pods in that size range for a couple of years anyway, so it’s not exactly a major loss. One side effect of the machine’s diminutive size is that both the water tank and the capsule holder are correspondingly smaller as well. And no, transplanting the water tank from my old machine wasn’t possible, as the tank on the Vertuo Pop has a different shape. The machine is also simpler, relying on the user to manually lock and unlock the machine, as compared to the Vertuo Plus’s automatic motorised lid. On both machines, the lid takes up the entire upper part of the machine though. 

Setting up the machine is easy and painless. You just plug it in, install the flimsy drip tray, and run a cleaning cycle, and then you’re ready to go. I ran a few extra cleaning cycles, just to be on the safe side and was still ready to go in fifteen minutes. I would have been ready even quicker if I hadn’t taken so many pictures for this review!

Everyday use is just as straightforward as I’ve come to expect from Nespresso. You just pop in a capsule, close the machine, and press the button. That’s all there is to it, there’s literally only one button on the entire machine. Unlike its predecessor though, the Vertuo Pop does not feature an automatic lid, it needs to be closed and locked manually. It’s a bit of a change but after a few weeks with the new machine, it’s pretty much become second nature for me. I was a bit worried at first that I might inadvertently use too much force, but so far, the Vertuo Pop has been able to take everything I’ve dished out and then some. 

You have control - sort of. The button and locking lever are the only physical controls on the machine.

Making a coffee is literally as easy as turning on the machine, popping in a capsule,…

…locking the machine and pressing a button.

Having said that, the machine is noticeably louder and more “aggressive” when brewing coffee. I’m not sure if that’s simply because it is smaller than its predecessor, the Vertuo Plus, but it is definitely noticeable. I’ve also noticed that the machine is somewhat “wet” for lack of a better term. For some reason, water seems to drip out of the brewing assembly and into the capsule holder, seemingly at random. I haven’t been able to find the reason for this machine incontinence yet, but the amounts I’ve seen so far are relatively small, and it’s also not a regular occurrence. More importantly, it doesn’t impinge on the already limited water reservoir in the Vertuo Pop, which needs to be topped up every 1-2 days in my experience, especially when brewing the larger (230ml) mug sizes. Speaking of mugs, tall ones will likely come up against the curve right behind the coffee spout which can cause coffee to spill. Or rather crema, of which the machine produces a whole lot. 

It might just be me, but this amount of crema seems to be excessive even by Nespresso standards.

And then, there’s the app…

*Sigh*

I know everyone and their grandparents have an app for every bit of tech out there these days, whether it makes sense or not. And on the surface, having a dedicated app to control a Nespresso machine makes sense. The user can access more information about the machine, and can even trigger special preparation methods, all without adding any extra control elements or any kind of display to the machine. That’s the theory anyway. However, when it comes to the Vertuo Pop, the whole thing simply doesn’t work. Like, at all! The Vertuo Pop features a Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz WiFi module that can be used to connect it to a dedicated app for control. Opting for 2.4 GHz in this day and age is certainly a choice, but between my weather station, Kindle, and several other devices, I still have quite a bit of hardware that relies on this old standard. And to be fair, pairing the machine via Bluetooth was as painless as could be. But no matter what I did, I was not able to get the machine to connect to my Wi-Fi. And it seems that I’m not alone. The reviews, both in the App Store and on Google Play are scathing! It seems like the app is effectively unusable. Thankfully, the machine doesn’t rely on the app, and I can still get my caffeine fix perfectly fine without it.

All of this might sound like I’m being overly critically of the Vertuo Pop, but that’s really not the case. None of these things really dampen my enjoyment ihn the machine, or the fact that it is just simply fun to use! It warms up in no time, and I feel like the brewing process as a whole is also quicker than on its predecessor. The coffee is just as good as on its predecessor, and the mango adds a much needed dash of colour in a world that seems to have banished the very concept of colour from our homes! I’m certainly not regretting getting mine!