Product review (1 stars): AGREED! The worst washer ever.
We bought this for our Mom who is in her 80's, so simple and efficient operation was important. It was advertised as being quiet, and the spin cycle is amazingly unobtrusive, but it screeches during another part the cycle, which alarmed Mom at first because it sounded like it was having mechanical difficulty (i.e. not the sound of a smoothly operating appliance). Having to go out and buy a special type of detergent was also a thumbs-down (although I understand the reasoning behind it). People may have their distinct favorite brand after several decades of doing laundry, or they may want  to use coupons or buy detergent on sale if on a limited income and not be obligated to a higher priced item.

One day I came over to did the laundry for Mom. I am fascinated with new technology so I peeked inside the tub mid-cycle trying to see how the odd-looking agitator worked. I was surprised to see barely any water in the tub, and the clothes on top were out of the water. I thought maybe I had forgotten to change the Load Size setting from small to large when I put in the load. Guess what? No setting for load size--it automatically fills so you can't add more water even if you wanted to. Then I noticed actually printed on the machine "It is normal for some of the load to be above the water level". Hello. Last time I checked, you actually have to have clothes IN the water for them to get WASHED and eventually, clean. The machine is advertised as high-volume capacity but what good is that when you can't fill the water up to that capacity? The concept is that the agitator will eventually rotate the clothes on top down into the water, and push the others out of the water. So, I get it, you use only half the amount of water necessary by making the clothes take turns getting in and out of their bath. But....are you really getting the clothes clean swishing them around in half the water, which is twice as dirty? And the clothes are getting washed only half the time that you think they are, because half the time they are waiting their turn to get rotated in?

At the end of the cycle, there was just a little bit of detergent residue (using the high efficiency detergent) but the clothes still had dog hair on them. I had to redo the load which of course, negated the energy star effects for both water and electricity. Maybe if you never check the laundry afterward and just throw it into the dryer, you'll land up with more lint because the extra stuff got blown out instead of washed out. I understand you might not get everything out if you have tons of dog hair in there but it's not like she owns a kennel or anything, she has one little 15 pound dog. I have 3 dogs and my Kenmore (that actually uses enough water to wash the load) gets everything fabulously clean. So I think this is an example of a company being so excited about their new technology that they put it into production right away so they could be the first on the market, but actually thought it was not important to test it thoroughly first. What were they thinking? Truthfully, I wouldn't even get this machine it it were at the Goodwill.