While it does have more "bells and whistles" is has this VERY aggravating pattern of stopping the wash or rinse cycles to require that the load be re-balanced.  I can not recall once in the last 15 years that my previous Frigidaire stack laundry center required that!! So no, you CAN NOT throw a load in the wash and go back to it an hour later and put it in the dryer! You must first re-balance and then WAIT for it to finish the cycle. I bought this for our AirBnB and believe me, this is a huge inconvenience!! If you don't mind monitoring the load from start to finish this may be the unit for you. If not, consider something else like I wish now that I had. Top that off with the fact that I called the 800# on the machine and was told that they were experiencing high call volume and that I'd have to call back later or visit their website.