Product review (4 stars): Amazing Washer, Dryer Always Leaves Clothes Damp in Auto Setting
I have extensive experience in using a myriad of washers and dryers from many different manufacturers.  Unfortunately, my wife and I have gone through machines like water since we've had kids.  I guess we are pretty hard on our machines, and they never seem to last very long.  We looked into getting commercial grade machines, but they are prohibitively expensive...so instead of just flying blind and buying whatever we liked at Home Depot, I actually did some research before finally settling in on the pair of LG front loaders I'm reviewing here.  Based on all of the internet research I did, these machines routinely received extremely high grades and excellent reviews across the board...so we had reasonably high expectations upon buying them.

We have owned them for about two years now, and use the ever-loving daylights out of them.  We probably do two loads of laundry a day, sometimes light loads, and sometimes extremely heavy loads of laundry.  I'll review each machine independently, because I think each of them deserves to be distinguished from the other:

THE WASHER:  This is simply the finest wash machine I've ever used...front load or top load.  It handles literally as much laundry as you can stuff in the wash bowl...and if you do stuff it full of laundry, there's a cycle specifically for that type of load: the "Heavy" load cycle.  The "Normal/Cotton" setting is the default mode, which handles most types of loads just fine, as it assumes you want warm water and a high spin speed.

What impresses me the most about this washer is how quickly a normal cycle is for an average amount of laundry.  It routinely only takes about a half hour to fully cycle through an average load, which is, in my experience, an incredibly small amount of time for a front load machine.  I've had front load machines that routinely took 90 minutes!

What also impresses me about this machine is the turbo option, which, when pressed, constantly hits the load of laundry with a jet streak of wash water while spinning the tub.  From what I can tell in looking at it, that helps recycle the water through the tub, and helps knock dirt off of clothing...compared to just doing a load without selecting turbo wash.  The turbo-wash option is a pretty neat invention for a front load machine.

Also unlike other front load machines I've used, the "Speed Cycle" actually does wash clothes quickly...in about 15 minutes for a light load.  I use this load cycle a good bit of time if the load I'm washing isn't very large.

The "Towels" cycle actually does change up the wash cycle to handle heavy materials that soak up a lot of water.  The "Sanitize" cycle is a good bit longer, but adds very hot steam to kill bacteria in the wash.  I almost never use the Sanitize cycle due to its longer wash time, but will occasionally when washing something that's exceptionally nasty.  When you have a 10 year old and a 7 year old, sometimes the laundry really does need to be sanitized :)

You have the option of starting a wash several hours into the future, which is helpful if you know you won't be able to empty the wash until the next day.  There is also an option that continues to spin the cleaned load after the cycle has finished, in order to keep the load fresh for several hours after completion.

Generally speaking, this washing machine does a spectacular job cleaning practically any load of laundry, no matter what kind of material nor how soiled it is.  I highly recommend you consider this product if you're in the market for a washing machine.  You will be thrilled with it.

THE DRYER:  Using this dryer after that exceptional washing machine is sort of like flying out on a vacation first class, then flying home economy.  To put it bluntly, I dislike this dryer because, well, it doesn't adequately dry the clothes.  It has several dry settings for its automatic sensor, and I always choose the most dry setting.  But, a full load of laundry will usually require running the dry cycle twice, even if the most dry setting is selected and the hottest cycle is selected.  When relying on the automatic sensor, I always select the "Antibiotic" setting to dry clothing because it is the longest and hottest automatic setting...and it rarely fully dries a load of clothing.

Additionally, this machine does a TERRIBLE job at drying very small loads.  If you only throw in a couple of garments (i.e. a t shirt and a pair of jeans), regardless of what auto setting you choose, your clothes will come out nice and damp.  The only way to make sure your clothes will adequately dry is to manually set the timer yourself to its maximum time.

I am sure the good people at LG were trying to design a dryer that is highly energy efficient, and I applaud them for that.  I have no doubt that this is the most efficient electric dryer I have used.  Unfortunately, in my experience, "efficiency" is another word for "ineffective" when it comes to any machines that require significant amounts of energy to perform properly.  There's no way around the simple premise that in order to perform work, you need to put energy into it, and the less energy you expend, the less work can be done.  You won't see many race cars that sip gasoline, and you will never see a Toyota Prius listed as one of the top 10 fastest cars on the road.  Efficient machines, by definition, do less work.  And this dryer is highly efficient.

The LG wash machine easily gets 5 stars, and would get even more if it was an option.  The dryer gets two stars, mostly because, while it has a nice assortment of options, none of them actually dry the clothes satisfactorily unless you manually set the timer and tub temperature yourself.

Ultimately, this wash machine is so good, I can live with having to manually set the dryer for each load.  I have yet to ever be disappointed after taking a clean load of laundry out of this washer.  That's about as high a praise for a machine I can give...and its definitely good enough to cover up for the otherwise poor performance of the dryer.

I would definitely recommend this pair of machines to anyone.  They are most definitely worth their cost.