Product review (5 stars): Changed my life for the better
I have run about 2-3 loads through this dishwasher every day since purchasing it a few weeks ago. Probably about the best money I have ever spent on a home related good. Ultimately I made it only 2 years in apartment living before caving to get this. The first was my senior year of college, and the second was last year. I grew up always having a dishwasher so to not have one was painful. I also find an almost bizarrely enormous sense of satisfaction loading up this little dishwasher, squirting a little Cascade gel in, and running it. It has taken me these few weeks to get loading it figured out correctly. I have found that bowls (larger ones anyways) really only fit well standing upright in the section designed for plates, so it's kindof a bowls load or a plates load type of deal. And when you need to wash some 'tupperware' type plastic containers, fuhgedaboudit. Those either go in 1 or 2 pieces with lids amongst a load of other more orderly items, or just scattered about on their own.

Seriously though, the amount of silverware my wife and I go through is almost insane. I'd say we rotate our entire 12-piece set about once every 2 to 3 days; not the big spoons of course though. Those only get used for soup. So when I think back to doing that all manually, it makes my hands feel clammy and dry like they used to get after spending hours in that hot soapy water.

Now I get to listen to the little dishwasher that could wrshump --- wrshump --- wrshump in an oh-so-relaxing cadence while I relax and ponder how the 3.8 gallons (much less than I would have used manually) and .31 kWh will only cost me a few pennies. Isn't technology marvelous?

My parents own a Bosch 800 series washer. Yes those are so dang quiet that you can barely hear it run. But I'm serious when I say that this washer is just about everything the Bosch is, just with about 1/3 of the space inside. It doesn't have all the crazy control buttons, but once you set it to your 'normal' setting, all anyone does is load it up and push Start anyways! And it is actually pretty quiet too, assuming you don't load something in such a way that it directs the water spray straight onto the door (or load a giant 'tupperware' item right next to the door, as those (larger) plastic items tend to make more noise from the water jet).

As for the packaging. Wow. The packaging was designed to withstand CRAZY, like, delivery truck rolled over type accidents or something. It was double boxed, with the internal box suspended by foam inserts at all corners of the outer box. And the washer itself was suspended in the inner box by cardboard pieces at the corners. Dang son. I carried it up the (one) flight of stairs to our apartment and I actually strained my back just a bit. It is heavy, but more than that, awkwardly huge due to the intense packaging, so you end up with a huge lever arm pulling down on you. Seriously, get your friend to help you bring it in your place.